State-of-the-art nanofabrication processes for manufacturing integrated photonic devices based on silicon nitride

光子工业正在跟随微电子制造商的脚步，探索如何提高光学产品的集成度，以降低当前光互连的成本。这导致了硅光子学的发展，它利用了微电子工业最先进的制造工艺和大量的资本投资来生产价格合理的组件。利用最初用于构建和封装电子电路的材料实现高效的光学功能是具有挑战性的。为了解决这个问题，AEPONYX正在开发一种微加工平台，将基于氮化硅的集成光学元件与微机电系统（MEMS）相结合。初步研究清楚地表明，这种技术的瓶颈与用于制造这些集成光子器件的纳米制造工艺有关。在此背景下，由INRS， UQAM和AEPONYX的研究人员组成的团队提出推动纳米制造技术（电子束光刻和纳米模式转移）的极限，以便(i)在纳米级控制集成光子器件的关键尺寸和侧壁轮廓，（ii）最小化波导侧壁粗糙度，以及（iii）以最低成本开发稳健可靠的纳米制造工艺。这种优化的纳米制造工艺将通过制造密集波分复用（DWDM）滤波器来进行验证，这些滤波器布置在对极化不敏感的8通道波长选择光学滤波器中，并与国际电联G.989.2 NG-PON2标准中指定的波长信道分配兼容。在拟议项目中进行的调查结果将直接影响基于MEMS和集成光学的产品的质量和速度，AEPONYX及其工业合作伙伴C2MI， Teledyne Dalsa和IBM将能够大规模生产。

The photonic industry is following into the footsteps of microelectronic manufacturers by exploring how to increase the level of integration of optical products in order to reduce the cost of current optical interconnects. This has led to the development of silicon photonics, which takes advantage of the state-of-the-art fabrication processes and massive capital investment made by the microelectronic industry to produce affordable components. Implementing efficient optical functionalities with materials originally developed to build and package electronic circuits is challenging. To address this issue, AEPONYX is developing a microfabricated platform that combines integrated optical components based on silicon nitride with microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Preliminary studies have clearly shown that the bottleneck of such a technology is related to the nanofabrication processes used for manufacturing these integrated photonic devices. In this context, the team composed of researchers from INRS, UQAM and AEPONYX proposes to push the limits of nanofabrication technologies (electron beam lithography and nanometer pattern transfer) in order to (i) control the critical dimensions and the sidewall profiles of integrated photonic devices at the nanoscale level, (ii) minimize the sidewall roughness of the waveguides, and (iii) develop a robust and reliable nanofabrication process at the lowest cost. Validation of such an optimized nanofabrication process will be performed by manufacturing dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) filters arranged in an 8-channel wavelength selective optical filter insensitive to polarization and compatible with the wavelength channel allocation specified in the ITU G.989.2 NG-PON2 standard. The results of the investigation performed in the proposed project will directly impact the quality and the pace at which products based on MEMS and integrated optics will be able to be mass manufactured by AEPONYX and its industrial collaborators C2MI, Teledyne Dalsa and IBM.