High-Q-factor Al2O3 micro-trench cavities integrated with silicon nitride waveguides on silicon.

We report on the design and performance of high-Q integrated optical micro-trench cavities on silicon. The microcavities are co-integrated with silicon nitride bus waveguides and fabricated using wafer-scale silicon-photonics-compatible processing steps. The amorphous aluminum oxide resonator material is deposited via sputtering in a single straightforward post-processing step. We examine the theoretical and experimental optical properties of …