Engineering Commons^™

Low-Loss Hollow Waveguide Platforms For Optical Sensing And Manipulation, Evan J. Lunt

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents a method for fabricating integrated hollow and solid optical waveguides on planar substrates. These waveguides are antiresonant reflecting optical waveguides (ARROWs), where high-index cladding layers confine light to hollow cores through optical interference. Hollow waveguides that can be filled with liquids or gases are an important new building block for creating highly-integrated optical sensors. The method developed for fabricating these integrated waveguides employs standard processes and materials used in the microelectronics industry, allowing for parallel, low-cost fabrication. Dielectric cladding layers are deposited on a silicon wafer using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). After the lower cladding layers …