Photonic crystal based amorphous silicon microcavity

Abstract

In this research, properties of bulk and microcavity hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride are studied. Microcavities were realized by embedding the active hydrogenated amorphous silicon layer between two dielectric mirrors. The dielectric mirrors were realized with two distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR's). The DBR's are one dimensional photonic bandgap (PBG) materials, i.e., photonic crystals, composed of alternating layers of silicon oxide and silicon nitride. All of the layers are grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) on silicon substrates. The temperature dependence of the amorphous silicon photoluminescence. is performed to fully characterize and optimize the material in the pursuit of obtaining novel photonic microdevices. Photonics device characterization was done by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), photoluminescence, and reflectance measurements. The reflectance spectra calculations were performed using the transfer matrix method (TMM).