Buried waveguides written deep inside silicon

Abstract

Summary form only given. Silicon waveguides are widely used as optical interconnects and they are particularly important for Si-photonics. Si-based devices, along with other optical elements, are entirely fabricated on the top surface of Si wafers. However, further integration of photonic and electronic devices in the same chip requires a new approach. One alternative is to utilize the bulk of the wafer for fabricating photonic elements. Recently, we reported a direct-laser-writing method that exploits nonlinear interactions and can generate subsurface modifications inside silicon without damaging the surface. Using this method, we fabricated several functional optical elements including gratings, lenses, and holograms. In this work, we demonstrate optical waveguides entirely embedded in Si.