Rapid Prototyping of Silicon Nitride Integrated Photonics Platforms for Visible to Mid-IR Circuits

Silicon photonics (SiP) has emerged as a leading platform in integrated photonics enabling a variety of applications including high-speed communications, quantum photonics, gyroscopes, and light detection and ranging (LIDAR)[1]. SiP is well suited for operation in the O, S, and C telecommunications bands. However, silicon has fundamental material limitations that restrict its uses in visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) applications, such as microscopy, augmented reality, and biological sensing [2]. As an alternative to silicon-on-insulator (SOI), silicon nitride (SiN)-based platforms have gained success in recent years and are now being offered by foundries through multi-project wafer (MPW) fabrication runs [2], [3].