Lithographic Mask Defects Analysis on an MMI 3 dB Splitter†
1
Departamento de Engenharia Eletrotécnica, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus da Caparica, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
2
CTS-UNINOVA, Departamento de Engenharia Eletrotécnica, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, FCT, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Campus da Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
3
ISEL—Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa, Rua Conselheiro Emídio Navarro, 1, 1959-007 Lisboa, Portugal
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
This paper is an extended version of our paper published in: SPIE Paper Number: AOP100-40. Lourenço, P.; Fantoni, A.; Vieira, M. Simulation analysis of a thin film semiconductor MMI 3 dB splitter operating in the visible range. In Proceedings of AOP 2019, IV International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics, Lisbon, Portugal, 31 May–4 June 2019.
Photonics 2019, 6(4), 118; https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics6040118
Received: 8 October 2019 / Revised: 2 November 2019 / Accepted: 5 November 2019 / Published: 9 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances on Applications of Optics and Photonics – Selected Papers from the 4th International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics, AOP2019)
In this paper, we present a simulation study that intends to characterize the influence of defects introduced by manufacturing processes on the geometry of a semiconductor structure suitable to be used as a multimode interference (MMI) 3 dB power splitter. Consequently, these defects will represent refractive index fluctuations which, on their turn, will drastically affect the propagation conditions within the structure. Our simulations were conducted on a software platform that implements the Beam Propagation numerical method. This work supports the development of a biomedical plasmonic sensor, which is based on the coupling between propagating modes in a dielectric waveguide and the surface plasmon mode that is generated on an overlaid metallic thin film, and where the output readout is achieved through an a-Si:H photodiode. By using a multimode interference 1 × 2 power splitter, this sensor device can utilize the non-sensing arm as a reference one, greatly facilitating its calibration and enhancing its performance. As the spectral sensitivity of amorphous silicon is restricted to the visible range, this sensing device should be operating on a wavelength not higher than 700 nm; thus, a-SiNx has been the material hereby proposed for both waveguides and MMI power splitter.
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Keywords:
a-SiNx; beam propagation method; multimode interference; 3 dB splitter
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MDPI and ACS Style
Lourenço, P.; Fantoni, A.; Costa, J.; Vieira, M. Lithographic Mask Defects Analysis on an MMI 3 dB Splitter. Photonics 2019, 6, 118.
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