Full text
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| Author(s): |
Daniel Orquiza de Carvalho
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola Politécnica (EP/BC) |
| Defense date: | 2012-02-15 |
| Examining board members: |
Marco Isaías Alayo Chávez;
Michel Oliveira da Silva Dantas;
Roberto Koji Onmori;
Josemir Coelho Santos;
Niklaus Ursus Wetter
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| Advisor: | Marco Isaías Alayo Chávez |
| Abstract | |
The main goals of this thesis are: the study and improvement of different geometrical and fabrication process parameters of Anti-Resonant Reflecting Optical Waveguides (ARROWs), aiming at reducing the propagation losses; and the design, fabrication and characterization of integrated optics sensors using the improved processes. The studied parameters were: the materials used as anti-resonant layers, the thickness of these layers, the rib height and the sidewall roughness (SWR), which is considered the most critical parameter with respect to propagation losses in the fabrication process used in this work. The materials used in the fabrication of ARROW waveguides over silicon substrate were silicon oxynitride (SiOxNy) films deposited by PECVD at 320°C, SiO2 films, thermally grown at 1200°C and TiOxNy films deposited by the reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The definition of the sidewalls of these waveguides was performed by Reactive Ion Etching (RIE) and conventional photolithographic techniques. The characterization techniques used were: propagation loss measurements, using the top view technique and modal analysis. The main contribution of this work was the proposition of an alternative fabrication process where pedestals are used in order to define the sidewalls before deposition of the core of the ARROW waveguides. This process allowed significant reduction of losses and cutoff of higher modes at widths of 6 µm. Finally, with the waveguides and improved processes two different types of optical sensors were fabricated: refractometric sensors based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer (IMZ) and humidity sensors based on evanescent field absorption using polypyrrole polymer (PPy). The characterization results of IMZ based sensors showed that, although a sensor response has been observed in terms of change of output power with variation of the external medium\'s refractive index, this variation is possibly being influenced by multimode interference resulting from limitations in the fabrication process. This significantly reduces the sensitivity with respect to designed values. The humidity sensors show a significant variation in output power for relative humidity values around 70%, allowing its use in different applications, such as in food industry and in air quality monitoring. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 07/08660-9 - Optimization of ARROW waveguide's fabrication steps for the application in optical sensors development |
| Grantee: | Daniel Orquiza de Carvalho |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate |