High-yield wafer-scale fabrication of ultralow-loss, dispersion-engineered silicon nitride photonic circuits

Arslan S. Raja; Guanhao Huang; Jijun He; Junqiu Liu; Nils J. Engelsen; Rui Ning Wang; Tianyi Liu; Tobias J. Kippenberg

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High-yield wafer-scale fabrication of ultralow-loss, dispersion-engineered silicon nitride photonic circuits

Junqiu Liu, Guanhao Huang, Rui Ning Wang, Jijun He, Arslan S. Raja, Tianyi Liu, Nils J. Engelsen, Tobias J. Kippenberg

Applied Physics · Submitted 25 May 2020

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim Here we overcome these challenges and demonstrate a fabrication technology which meets all these requirements on wafer-level yield, performance and length scale.

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arXiv ID2005.13949 (version 2)

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CitationArslan S. Raja, Guanhao Huang, Jijun He, Junqiu Liu, Nils J. Engelsen, Rui Ning Wang, Tianyi Liu, Tobias J. Kippenberg. "High-yield wafer-scale fabrication of ultralow-loss, dispersion-engineered silicon nitride photonic circuits." arXiv:2005.13949 (2020). https://pith.science/paper/RNQDQVFS

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What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.13 · states limitation 0.19 · human participants 0.02 · controlled comparison 0.05 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.99 · compares with prior results 0.73 · mentions code or data availability 0.02.

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arXiv listing abstract v2. Results and the main claim are underlined; show every role.

Low-loss photonic integrated circuits (PIC) and microresonators have enabled novel applications ranging from narrow-linewidth lasers, microwave photonics, to chip-scale optical frequency combs and quantum frequency conversion. To translate these results into a widespread technology, attaining ultralow optical losses with established foundry manufacturing is critical. Recent advances in fabrication of integrated Si3N4 photonics have shown that ultralow-loss, dispersion-engineered microresonators can be attained at die-level throughput. For emerging nonlinear applications such as integrated travelling-wave parametric amplifiers and mode-locked lasers, PICs of length scales of up to a meter are required, placing stringent demands on yield and performance that have not been met with current fabrication techniques. Here we overcome these challenges and demonstrate a fabrication technology which meets all these requirements on wafer-level yield, performance and length scale. Photonic microresonators with a mean Q factor exceeding 30 million, corresponding to a linear propagation loss of 1.0 dB/m, are obtained over full 4-inch wafers, as determined from a statistical analysis of tens of thousands of optical resonances and cavity ringdown with 19 ns photon storage time. The process operates over large areas with high yield, enabling 1-meter-long spiral waveguides with 2.4 dB/m loss in dies of only 5x5 mm size. Using a modulation response measurement self-calibrated via the Kerr nonlinearity, we reveal that, strikingly, the intrinsic absorption-limited Q factor of our Si3N4 microresonators exceeds a billion. Transferring the present Si3N4 photonics technology to standard commercial foundries, and merging it with silicon photonics using heterogeneous integration technology, will significantly expand the scope of today's integrated photonics and seed new applications.

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What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	Low-loss photonic integrated circuits (PIC) and microresonators have enabled novel applications ranging from narrow-linewidth lasers, microwave photonics, to chip-scale optical frequency combs and quantum frequency conversion.	background 1.00	0.04	0.02	asserted 1.00
s1	To translate these results into a widespread technology, attaining ultralow optical losses with established foundry manufacturing is critical.	background 0.65	0.04	0.03	asserted 0.96
s2	Recent advances in fabrication of integrated Si3N4 photonics have shown that ultralow-loss, dispersion-engineered microresonators can be attained at die-level throughput.	background 0.95	0.07	0.05	asserted 0.98
s3	For emerging nonlinear applications such as integrated travelling-wave parametric amplifiers and mode-locked lasers, PICs of length scales of up to a meter are required, placing stringent demands on yield and performance that have not been met with current fabrication techniques.	gap 0.97	0.06	0.03	asserted 1.00
s4	Here we overcome these challenges and demonstrate a fabrication technology which meets all these requirements on wafer-level yield, performance and length scale.	contribution 1.00	0.92	0.74	asserted 1.00
s5	Photonic microresonators with a mean Q factor exceeding 30 million, corresponding to a linear propagation loss of 1.0 dB/m, are obtained over full 4-inch wafers, as determined from a statistical analysis of tens of thousands of optical resonances and cavity ringdown with 19 ns photon storage time.	result 1.00	0.96	0.21	asserted 1.00
s6	The process operates over large areas with high yield, enabling 1-meter-long spiral waveguides with 2.4 dB/m loss in dies of only 5x5 mm size.	result 0.99	0.93	0.15	asserted 1.00
s7	Using a modulation response measurement self-calibrated via the Kerr nonlinearity, we reveal that, strikingly, the intrinsic absorption-limited Q factor of our Si3N4 microresonators exceeds a billion.	result 0.99	0.97	0.12	asserted 1.00
s8	Transferring the present Si3N4 photonics technology to standard commercial foundries, and merging it with silicon photonics using heterogeneous integration technology, will significantly expand the scope of today's integrated photonics and seed new applications.	future work 0.53	0.05	0.17	hedged possibility 0.50

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: method or tool 0.81 · evidence from observation or experiment 1.00.

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arXiv listing abstract v2

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full text
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references and citing sentences
relations to other papers

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P abstract

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S sections
T body sentences
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The paper

Original abstract

Low-loss photonic integrated circuits (PIC) and microresonators have enabled novel applications ranging from narrow-linewidth lasers, microwave photonics, to chip-scale optical frequency combs and quantum frequency conversion. To translate these results into a widespread technology, attaining ultralow optical losses with established foundry manufacturing is critical. Recent advances in fabrication of integrated Si3N4 photonics have shown that ultralow-loss, dispersion-engineered microresonators can be attained at die-level throughput. For emerging nonlinear applications such as integrated travelling-wave parametric amplifiers and mode-locked lasers, PICs of length scales of up to a meter are required, placing stringent demands on yield and performance that have not been met with current fabrication techniques. Here we overcome these challenges and demonstrate a fabrication technology which meets all these requirements on wafer-level yield, performance and length scale. Photonic microresonators with a mean Q factor exceeding 30 million, corresponding to a linear propagation loss of 1.0 dB/m, are obtained over full 4-inch wafers, as determined from a statistical analysis of tens of thousands of optical resonances and cavity ringdown with 19 ns photon storage time. The process operates over large areas with high yield, enabling 1-meter-long spiral waveguides with 2.4 dB/m loss in dies of only 5x5 mm size. Using a modulation response measurement self-calibrated via the Kerr nonlinearity, we reveal that, strikingly, the intrinsic absorption-limited Q factor of our Si3N4 microresonators exceeds a billion. Transferring the present Si3N4 photonics technology to standard commercial foundries, and merging it with silicon photonics using heterogeneous integration technology, will significantly expand the scope of today's integrated photonics and seed new applications.

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6 papers by the same authors are listed below: 6 used its method or tool.

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By the same authors

Integrated ultralow-loss silicon nitride photonic circuits from this paper heterogeneously with thin-film lithium niobate via direct wafer bonding.

Ultrafast tunable lasers using lithium niobate integrated photonics (2021) (same authors) · 0.84 · paraphrased: the licence does not allow quoting
An etchback planarization process [ref] , combining dry etching and chemical-mechanical planarization (CMP), is used to remove excess and to create waveguide top surface with 0.3 nm RMS roughness.

Photonic chip-based continuous-travelling-wave parametric amplifier (2021) (same authors) · Introduction · 0.96
We fabricated Si$_3$N$_4$ racetrack microresonators using the photonic Damascene reflow process [ref] .

Compact, spatial-mode-interaction-free, ultralow-loss, nonlinear photonic integrated circuits (2021) (same authors) · Introduction · 0.98
The Si$_3$N$_4$ microresonators used in the experiment were fabricated by the photonic Damascene process that yields ultralow propagation loss [ref] .

A chip-scale second-harmonic source via injection-locked all-optical poling (2023) (same authors) · Discussion · 0.96
Based its resonators, with an FSR of 15 GHz, on the photonic waveguide platform fabricated using this paper's Damascene process.

Dissipative solitons and switching waves in dispersion folded Kerr cavities (2022) (same authors) · 0.93 · paraphrased: the licence does not allow quoting
The photonic chip with a $Si_3N_4$ waveguide embedded in $SiO_2$ is fabricated via the Damascene process [ref] onto a Si substrate.

Electrons herald non-classical light (2024) (same authors) · Fiber-coupled integrated waveguides · 0.94

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7 arXiv papers cite this in 9 sentences

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Cites it as background 1 paper

Defect-based integrated quantum photonics [ref] is thus a recent and exciting union of two distinct and rapidly developing fields: the study of quantum spintronics [ref] and the development of classical integrated photonics [ref] .

Integrated quantum photonics with silicon carbide: challenges and prospects · Introduction · 0.90

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