Engineering topics

Ross, Willard

Publications and source records attributed to Ross, Willard.

4 records

DOE OSTI2024

Dry etching of epitaxial InGaAs/InAlAs/InAlGaAs structures for fabrication of photonic integrated circuits

A dry etching process to transfer the pattern of a photonic integrated circuit design for high-speed laser communications is described. The laser stack under consideration is a 3.2-µm-thick InGaAs/InAlAs/InAlGaAs epitaxial structure grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The etching was performed using Cl2-based inductively-coupled-plasma and reactive-ion-etching (ICP-RIE) reactors. Four different recipes are presented in two similar ICP-RIE reactors, with special attention paid to the etched features formed with various hard mask compositions, in-situ passivations, and process temperatures. The results indicate that it is possible to produce high-aspect-ratio features with sub-micron separation on this multilayer structure. Additionally, the results of the etching highlight the tradeoffs involved with the corresponding recipes.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

DOE OSTI2022

Maximal absorption in ultrathin TiN films for microbolometer applications

Ultrathin light absorbers present a viable route toward improving the specific detectivity and response time of microbolometers. However, for an ultrathin film to absorb light efficiently, the dielectric function of the film and its thickness must satisfy strict requirements. Here we experimentally demonstrate an average absorptance of 48% ± 2.5% in the 8–13 μm (769–1250 cm -1 ) spectral range for 10 nm thick titanium nitride (TiN), a value bordering on the 50% fundamental absorptance limit for a suspended thin film. The heat capacity per unit area of this absorber is only 1.2 × 10 -6 J/K/cm 2 , which is beneficial for improving the response time of a microfabricated bolometer. We also show that a sufficient condition for reaching maximal absorption in an ultrathin film is that ε" $\gg$ |ε'|.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2019

Highly Plasmonic Titanium Nitride by Room-Temperature Sputtering

Titanium nitride (TiN) has recently emerged as an attractive alternative material for plasmonics. However, the typical high-temperature deposition of plasmonic TiN using either sputtering or atomic layer deposition has greatly limited its potential applications and prevented its integration into existing CMOS device architectures. Here, we demonstrate highly plasmonic TiN thin films and nanostructures by a room-temperature, low-power, and bias-free reactive sputtering process. We investigate the optical properties of the TiN films and their dependence on the sputtering conditions and substrate materials. We find that our TiN possesses one of the largest negative values of the real part of the dielectric function as compared to all other plasmonic TiN films reported to date. Two-dimensional periodic arrays of TiN nanodisks are then fabricated, from which we validate that strong plasmonic resonances are supported. Our room-temperature deposition process can allow for fabricating complex plasmonic TiN nanostructures and be integrated into the fabrication of existing CMOS-based photonic devices to enhance their performance and functionalities.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

DOE OSTI2019

Single-shot on-chip spectral sensors based on photonic crystal slabs

Miniaturized spectrometers have significant potential for portable applications such as consumer electronics, health care, and manufacturing. These applications demand low cost and high spectral resolution, and are best enabled by single-shot free-space-coupled spectrometers that also have sufficient spatial resolution. Here, we demonstrate an on-chip spectrometer that can satisfy all of these requirements. Our device uses arrays of photodetectors, each of which has a unique responsivity with rich spectral features. These responsivities are created by complex optical interference in photonic-crystal slabs positioned immediately on top of the photodetector pixels. The spectrometer is completely complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) compatible and can be mass produced at low cost.

42 ENGINEERING↗