Chalcogenide Glass Materials for Integrated Infrared Photonics
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Chalcogenide Glass Materials for Integrated Infrared Photonics by Vivek Singh B.S. Materials Science and Engineering Columbia University, 2009 Submitted to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY September 2015 © 2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All rights reserved. Signature of Author:_________________________________________ Department of Materials Science and Engineering July 20, 2015 Certified by:_____________________________________________ Lionel C. Kimerling Thomas Lord Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Thesis Supervisor Certified by:_____________________________________________ Anuradha M. Agarwal Principal Research Scientist, Materials Processing Center Thesis Supervisor Accepted by:_____________________________________________ Donald Sadoway Chair, Departmental Committee on Graduate Students 2 Chalcogenide Glass Materials for Integrated Infrared Photonics by Vivek Singh Submitted to the Department of Materials Science and Engineering on July 20, 2015 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Science and Engineering Abstract Chalcogenide glasses (ChGs) are amorphous compounds containing the chalcogen elements (S, Se, Te) and exhibit wide infrared transparency windows. They are easy to synthesize in bulk and thin film forms and their compositional flexibility allows tuning of optical properties such as refractive index making them ideal for infrared photonics. We have studied the material attenuation in ChGs that arises due to the presence of impurities in the raw materials and established UV photolithography-based process flows that enable fabrication of chalcogenide glass waveguides and microresonators for near- and mid-IR wavelength ranges. Waveguides and optical resonators are key microphotonic elements for many on-chip applications such as telecommunications and chemical sensing. In this thesis, we show that scattering losses dominate in our ChG microphotonic devices while material attenuation from impurities is low. We demonstrate resonators coated with nanoporous polymers to improve their selectivity against target analytes for sensing applications. We exploit the photosensitivity of As2S3 glass to build silicon-based tunable photonic devices that offer post-fabrication tuning to optimize performance. Resonators also serve as a test platform for studying the effects of radiation on silicon and chalcogenide materials systems. 3 Further, we propose new mid-IR microphotonic device designs using ChG materials and the challenges associated with measuring mid-IR devices along with solutions to address them. We employ input-to-output offsets, standard tapered waveguides, and a fiber collimator to improve mid-IR measurements and demonstrate transparent ChG waveguides with losses as low as 2.5 dB/cm. Finally, we propose a novel design that integrates PbTe detectors with ChG waveguides for on-chip mid-IR detection. Our simulations show that the use of a low-index spacer layer leads to a well-distributed field along the width of the detector due to a reduction in the effective index of the structure. We develop a fabrication process for waveguide-integrated detector designs and fabricate prototype structures that exhibit attenuation at telecom and mid-IR wavelengths. Such an integrated sensor design will enable the creation and deployment of low-cost remote sensor arrays with small footprints, and ultimately lead to “lab-on-a-chip” structures. Thesis Supervisors: Lionel C. Kimerling Title: Thomas Lord Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Anuradha M. Agarwal Title: Principal Research Scientist, Materials Processing Center 4 Acknowledgements I distinctly remember the day in January 2009 when I received an email saying that I had been accepted to MIT and it took a few minutes for the news to sink in. Growing up in India, I had heard many great things about MIT but I never imagined that I would one day graduate with a degree from MIT. It has been a long journey and I want to recognize all those who had a hand in helping me get to this point. I wish to start by thanking my parents. It could not have been easy for them to let their only child jet off to a foreign land on his own but they have always supported me with everything. I would not be here if it were not for their love and encouragement over the years. My thesis advisors, Prof. Lionel C. Kimerling (“Kim”) and Dr. Anu Agarwal, welcomed me into the electronic materials research group (“EMAT”) during my first semester and I will forever be grateful for it. I could always count on Kim to provide meaningful solutions to problems that I ran into during my thesis work and lead me down paths I would not have conceived of on my own. His intuitive understanding of photonics and materials science is inspiring and he can always break down a problem into simpler parts to help me focus better. Anu has been my day-to-day advisor in EMAT since I started and this thesis would not exist without all her support and guidance through the years. She is always approachable and easy to talk to which led to many long conversations about not just my research but other topics as well. The EMAT mentor list would be incomplete if I did not include Dr. Jurgen Michel. Although I did not get a chance to work with him directly until the last few months of my 5 research, I always appreciated his honesty, practical advice, and humor during group meeting presentations. I would also like to thank my committee members, Prof. Silvija Gradecak and Prof. Caroline Ross for their helpful suggestions and direction during committee meetings and the preparation of this thesis. Prof. Juejun “JJ” Hu, was my post-doctoral mentor when I joined EMAT and he has taught me much about photonics and chalcogenide glasses since then. Even after he left EMAT to teach at the University of Delaware, he was always available for discussions regarding my work over email and phone. His suggestions over the years and experimental assistance from his group members have been vital in the completion of this thesis work. I have been extremely fortunate to collaborate with a number of brilliant scientists and engineers during the course of my Ph.D. Prof. Kathleen Richardson (University of Central Florida), Prof. Igor Luzinov (Clemson University) and Dr. Joel Hensley (Physical Sciences, Inc.) have been a part of our chalcogenide glass team since the beginning of my time here and it has been wonderful working with their respective research groups. Many of the important achievements in this thesis would not have been possible without their direction. EMAT has also played host to visiting scholars and I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Stefano Grillanda and Dr. Davide Bianchi from Politecnico di Milano on various projects. I want to thank the staff at MIT’s shared facilities (MTL/CMSE) for training me on a number of instruments and for being patient with my questions. In particular, Paul Tierney and Kurt Broderick at MTL provided wonderful guidance when I was trying to design new process flows and were always available to answer my questions. Dr. Charlie Settens’ assistance at the CMSE XRD Lab was also very important. I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Piotr Becla for helping with PbTe thin film measurements and Dr. Nilanjan 6 Chatterjee in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences for his help with WDS data collection for my thin films. I want to thank Kim’s assistant, Ms. Lisa Sinclair, for all her help with scheduling meetings with Kim, administrative concerns, and most importantly, her delicious cakes! She keeps the group functioning smoothly and EMAT is lucky to have her onboard. I extend my sincere thanks to Ms. Angelita Mireles and Ms. Elissa Haverty at the DMSE administrative office as well as the staff at the International Students Office for their assistance during my time. Many former and current members of EMAT have formed an important part of my time at MIT: Dr. Timothy Zens, Neil Patel, Zhaohong Han, Brian Albert, Dr. Vivek Raghunathan, Dr. Michiel Vanhoutte, Dr. Yan Cai, Dr. Jianfei Wang, Dr. Jing Cheng, Dr. Rodolfo Camacho-Aguilera, Corentin Monmeyran, Brian Pearson, Dr. Kevin McComber, Dr. Xing Sheng, Dr. Kazumi Wada, Wei Yu, Dr. Lirong Zheng-Broderick, Dr. Jonathan Bessette, Dr. Jifeng Liu, Louisa Chiao, Dr. Pao Tai Lin, Dr. Lin Zhang, Dr. Clara Dimas, and Dr. Jianwei Mu. I had the pleasure of working directly with many of them on collaborative research projects within EMAT and I enjoyed the lively discussions we had on a variety of subjects. I want to extend a special thank you to Neil, Corentin, and Yan for helping me prepare for my oral exam. I am grateful to Prof. Joshua Grossman (now at University of Maryland) and Prof. James Im (Columbia), my undergraduate advisors, for giving me opportunities to conduct research in their labs and learn valuable skills that have helped me during my time at MIT. Finally, I wish to thank the rest of my family back in India for their love and support through the years. My friends, both at MIT and outside of it, played an important role in keeping me sane through these years by helping me take my mind off work 7 I dedicate this thesis to my maternal grandmother and a dear friend who unfortunately passed away during the course of my Ph.D. 8 Table of Contents Abstract ..........................................................................................................