Hot wire chemical vapor deposition for silicon photonics: An emerging industrial application opportunity

Abstract In this work different silicon photonic devices, including straight waveguides, multi-mode interference devices and Mach-Zehnder interferometers, were fabricated and characterized on hot-wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD) silicon nitride (SiN) layers deposited at temperatures below 350 °C. These layers presented a hydrogen concentration of 13.1%, which is lower than that achieved with plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at these deposition temperatures. The lowest reported optical propagation losses of 6.1 dB/cm and 5.7 dB/cm, 1550 nm and 1310 respectively, for straight SiN waveguides prepared by HWCVD was measured. We demonstrated that silicon nitride SiN, prepared using HWCVD, is a viable material for silicon photonics fabrication.