Tellurium Dioxide (TeO2)

Tellurium Dioxide (TeO2) - Dry Etching

Material Name: Tellurium Dioxide
Recipe No.: 10334
Primary Chemical Element in Material: Te
Sample Type: Layer
Uses: Etching
Etchant Name: None
Etching Method: Dry etching
Etchant (Electrolyte) Composition: The final etching conditions were 30 sccm H2, 5 sccm CH4, 30 sccm Ar, 30 mT pressure, 150W RF power, and the rib was etched 0.8 microns deep. Post etch resist removal was accomplished by an oxygen plasma strip to avoid damaging the TeO2 surface. The waveguides were then clad with a 15 µm thick film of UV cured inorganic polymer glass (RPO Pty Ltd, IPG) which has a refractive index of 1.509 at 1550 nm. End facets were then hand cleaved on the waveguides with a diamond scriber. The resulting waveguide chips were 7.8 cm long.
Procedure (Condition): No data
Note: We report on the fabrication and optical properties of the first very low loss nonlinear Tellurite planar rib waveguides ever demonstrated. A new reactive ion etch process based on Hydrogen as the active species was developed to accomplish the low propagation losses. Optical losses below ~0.05 dB/cm in most of the NIR spectrum and ~0.10 dB/cm at 1550 nm have been achieved - the lowest ever reported by more than an order of magnitude and clearly suitable for planar integrated devices. We demonstrate strong spectral broadening of 0.6 ps pulses in waveguides fabricated from pure TeO2, in good agreement with simulations.
Reference: S. J. Madden, K. T. Vu, Very low loss reactively ion etched Tellurium Dioxide planar rib waveguides for linear and non-linear optics, 28 September 2009 / Vol. 17, No. 20 / OPTICS EXPRESS 176450-17651.

Figure 1: Optical micrograph of cleaved finished waveguide in the 1.6 µm thick Tellurite film.