Adverse effects of low density silicon dioxide deposited via plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition for silicon photonic applications

Analysis and experimental demonstration of adverse device performance of silicon waveguides clad in silicon dioxide SiO2 deposited through plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition PECVD is presented. The PECVD SiO2 is of lower density in the vicinity of silicon strip waveguides and it shows a refractive index of n 1.253 and an estimated density of SiO2 1.27gcm3. The etch rate of this low density LD SiO2 is two times higher than anticipated. It is shown that a silicon ring resonator sustains a 7.3nm resonance blue shift from the predicted center wavelength due to the LD SiO2 cladding in the neighborhood of silicon waveguides.