感应耦合等离子体刻蚀在聚合物光波导制作中的应用

Application of ICP etching in fabrication of polymer optical waveguide

提出了利用感应耦合等离子体(ICP)刻蚀技术提高聚合物光波导器件性能的方法,介绍了ICP刻蚀技术的原理和优点。选取聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯-甲基丙烯酸环氧丙酯(P(MMA-GMA))作为波导材料,采用氧气作为刻蚀气体,研究了ICP参数变化对刻蚀效果的影响。介绍了倒脊形光波导的制备过程,采用改变单一工艺参数的方法,分析了刻蚀效果随时间、功率、压强、气体流量等参数的变化,对参数优化后刻蚀得到的凹槽和平板结构进行了表征。实验结果表明:在天线射频功率为300 W,偏置射频功率为30 W,气体压强为0.5 Pa,氧气流速为50 cm3/min的条件下,可获得侧壁陡直、底面平整的P(MMA-GMA)凹槽结构。

A method to improve the performance of polymer waveguide devices by Inductively Coupled Plasma（ICP） etching is proposed and the principle and advantages of ICP etching technology are introduced.Polymethyl Methacrylate-glycidyl Methacrylate（P（MMA-GMA）） is chosen as the waveguide material to study the influence of various ICP parameters on the etching results when oxygen is selected to be the process gas.Firstly,the fabrication process of an inverted ridge waveguide device is introduced in detail.Then the variations of etching results with time,powers,pressures,gas flow parameters are analyzed by changing a single process parameter.Finally,the optimized groove and the slab structures are characterized.Experimental results indicate that the waveguide surface morphology can be improved effectively and a good shape of P（MMA-GMA） groove structure can be achieved by using the optimized IPC etching parameters in an antenna RF of 300 W,a bias RF power of 30 W,a gas pressure of 0.5 Pa and a oxygen flow velocity of 50 cm3/min.