Subtractive photonics.

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Materials Science
• Integrated Optics
• Semiconductor Manufacturing

Background:

• Co-integration of photonic and electronic components offers significant advantages over conventional solutions.
• Developing complex multilayer photonic processes compatible with low-cost CMOS platforms remains a key challenge.
• Current approaches often require modifications to standard foundry processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate a novel photonic platform for fabricating multilayer photonic systems.
• To demonstrate a subtractive manufacturing approach compatible with existing integrated electronics.
• To enable cost-effective co-integration of photonic and electronic functionalities on a single substrate.

Main Methods:

• Utilized subtractive manufacturing techniques employing post-processing methods only.
• Employed well-controlled metal layers in advanced integrated electronics as sacrificial layers.
• Defined dielectric shapes as optical components by removing metal patterns via etching, preserving electronic wiring.

Main Results:

• Successfully fabricated proof-of-concept multilayer photonic structures using a 65 nm bulk CMOS process.
• Demonstrated monolithic electronic-photonic integration without altering the standard foundry process.
• Presented fabrication results, characterization, and measurement data validating the approach.

Conclusions:

• The subtractive manufacturing method provides a viable pathway for realizing complex multilayer photonic systems.
• This approach facilitates the co-integration of photonic and electronic components on a single chip using existing CMOS platforms.
• The technique is broadly applicable to various integrated chip technologies with defined metallization.