Slow light in mass-produced, dispersion-engineered photonic crystal ring resonators

Area of Science:

• Photonics and optical engineering
• Materials science for integrated optics
• Nanofabrication and lithography

Background:

• Photonic crystal ring resonators (PhCRRs) offer unique light-matter interaction properties.
• CMOS-compatible fabrication is crucial for scalable photonic integrated circuits.
• Deep-UV lithography presents opportunities for high-resolution photonic device fabrication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To experimentally validate a dispersion-engineering design approach for PhCRRs.
• To assess the feasibility of 193-nm deep-UV lithography for PhCRR fabrication.
• To investigate the light-matter interaction enhancement in PhCRRs compared to standard ring resonators.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of PhCRRs on a silicon-on-insulator platform using 193-nm deep-UV lithography.
• Comparison of theoretical dispersion engineering designs with experimental measurements.
• Development of methods for calculating discrete dispersion relations and extracting intrinsic quality factors.

Main Results:

• Excellent agreement between theoretical design and experimental results for PhCRRs.
• Mean photonic band-edge wavelength achieved at 1546.2 ± 5.8 nm, with a 0.2% deviation from the target of 1550 nm.
• Maximum intrinsic quality factor of approximately 83,800 reported, indicating high-performance microcavities.

Conclusions:

• 193-nm deep-UV lithography is a viable high-throughput method for fabricating PhCRRs.
• PhCRRs demonstrate enhanced light-matter interaction strength while preserving microcavity lifetimes.
• The validated design approach and fabrication method pave the way for advanced photonic integrated circuits.