Combining one and two photon polymerization for accelerated high performance (3 + 1)D photonic integration

Dense and efficient circuits with component sizes approaching the physical limit is the hallmark of high performance integration. Ultimately, these features and their pursuit enabled the multi-decade lasting exponential increase of components on integrated electronic chips according to Moore’s law,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Grabulosa Adrià, Moughames Johnny, Porte Xavier, Brunner Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: De Gruyter 2022-03-01
Series:Nanophotonics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1515/nanoph-2021-0733
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1846157391863742464
author Grabulosa Adrià
Moughames Johnny
Porte Xavier
Brunner Daniel
author_facet Grabulosa Adrià
Moughames Johnny
Porte Xavier
Brunner Daniel
author_sort Grabulosa Adrià
collection DOAJ
description Dense and efficient circuits with component sizes approaching the physical limit is the hallmark of high performance integration. Ultimately, these features and their pursuit enabled the multi-decade lasting exponential increase of components on integrated electronic chips according to Moore’s law, which culminated with the high performance electronics we know today. However, current fabrication technology is mostly constrained to 2D lithography, and thermal energy dissipation induced by switching electronic signal lines presents a fundamental challenge for truly 3D electronic integration. Photonics reduces this problem, and 3D photonic integration is therefore a highly sought after technology that strongly gains in relevance due to the need for scalable application-specific integrated circuits for neural networks. Direct laser writing of a photoresin is a promising high-resolution and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible tool for 3D photonic integration. Here, we combine one and two-photon polymerization (TPP) for waveguide integration for the first time, dramatically accelerating the fabrication process and increasing optical confinement. 3D additive printing is based on femtosecond TPP, while blanket irradiation with a UV lamp induces one-photon polymerization (OPP) throughout the entire 3D chip. We locally and dynamically adjust writing conditions to implement (3 + 1)D flash-TPP: waveguide cores are printed with a small distance between neighboring writing voxels to ensure smooth interfaces, mechanical support structures are printed at maximal distance between the voxels to speed up the process. Finally, the entire chip’s passive volume not part of waveguide cores or mechanical support is polymerized in a single instance by UV blanket irradiation. This decouples fabrication time from the passive volume’s size. We succeed in printing vertical single-mode waveguides of 6 mm length that reach numerical apertures up to NA = 0.16. Noteworthy, we achieve exceptionally low −0.26 dB injection losses and very low propagation losses of −1.36 dB/mm at λ0 = 660 nm, which is within one order of magnitude of standard integrated silicon photonics. Finally, the optical performance of our waveguides does not deteriorate for at least ∼3000 h after printing, and remains stable during ∼600 h of continuous operation with 0.25 mW injected light.
format Article
id doaj-art-7ce6dca4102344539d3ac73ff0f20287
institution Kabale University
issn 2192-8614
language English
publishDate 2022-03-01
publisher De Gruyter
record_format Article
series Nanophotonics
spelling doaj-art-7ce6dca4102344539d3ac73ff0f202872024-11-25T11:19:07ZengDe GruyterNanophotonics2192-86142022-03-011181591160110.1515/nanoph-2021-0733Combining one and two photon polymerization for accelerated high performance (3 + 1)D photonic integrationGrabulosa Adrià0Moughames Johnny1Porte Xavier2Brunner Daniel3FEMTO-ST/Optics Department, UMR CNRS 6174, University Bourgogne Franche-Comté, 15B avenue des Montboucons, Besançon Cedex, 25030, FranceFEMTO-ST/Optics Department, UMR CNRS 6174, University Bourgogne Franche-Comté, 15B avenue des Montboucons, Besançon Cedex, 25030, FranceFEMTO-ST/Optics Department, UMR CNRS 6174, University Bourgogne Franche-Comté, 15B avenue des Montboucons, Besançon Cedex, 25030, FranceFEMTO-ST/Optics Department, UMR CNRS 6174, University Bourgogne Franche-Comté, 15B avenue des Montboucons, Besançon Cedex, 25030, FranceDense and efficient circuits with component sizes approaching the physical limit is the hallmark of high performance integration. Ultimately, these features and their pursuit enabled the multi-decade lasting exponential increase of components on integrated electronic chips according to Moore’s law, which culminated with the high performance electronics we know today. However, current fabrication technology is mostly constrained to 2D lithography, and thermal energy dissipation induced by switching electronic signal lines presents a fundamental challenge for truly 3D electronic integration. Photonics reduces this problem, and 3D photonic integration is therefore a highly sought after technology that strongly gains in relevance due to the need for scalable application-specific integrated circuits for neural networks. Direct laser writing of a photoresin is a promising high-resolution and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible tool for 3D photonic integration. Here, we combine one and two-photon polymerization (TPP) for waveguide integration for the first time, dramatically accelerating the fabrication process and increasing optical confinement. 3D additive printing is based on femtosecond TPP, while blanket irradiation with a UV lamp induces one-photon polymerization (OPP) throughout the entire 3D chip. We locally and dynamically adjust writing conditions to implement (3 + 1)D flash-TPP: waveguide cores are printed with a small distance between neighboring writing voxels to ensure smooth interfaces, mechanical support structures are printed at maximal distance between the voxels to speed up the process. Finally, the entire chip’s passive volume not part of waveguide cores or mechanical support is polymerized in a single instance by UV blanket irradiation. This decouples fabrication time from the passive volume’s size. We succeed in printing vertical single-mode waveguides of 6 mm length that reach numerical apertures up to NA = 0.16. Noteworthy, we achieve exceptionally low −0.26 dB injection losses and very low propagation losses of −1.36 dB/mm at λ0 = 660 nm, which is within one order of magnitude of standard integrated silicon photonics. Finally, the optical performance of our waveguides does not deteriorate for at least ∼3000 h after printing, and remains stable during ∼600 h of continuous operation with 0.25 mW injected light.https://doi.org/10.1515/nanoph-2021-0733(3 + 1)d flash-printingone-photon polymerization (opp)single-mode waveguidestwo-photon polymerization (tpp)ultra-fast 3d additive manufacturing
spellingShingle Grabulosa Adrià
Moughames Johnny
Porte Xavier
Brunner Daniel
Combining one and two photon polymerization for accelerated high performance (3 + 1)D photonic integration
Nanophotonics
(3 + 1)d flash-printing
one-photon polymerization (opp)
single-mode waveguides
two-photon polymerization (tpp)
ultra-fast 3d additive manufacturing
title Combining one and two photon polymerization for accelerated high performance (3 + 1)D photonic integration
title_full Combining one and two photon polymerization for accelerated high performance (3 + 1)D photonic integration
title_fullStr Combining one and two photon polymerization for accelerated high performance (3 + 1)D photonic integration
title_full_unstemmed Combining one and two photon polymerization for accelerated high performance (3 + 1)D photonic integration
title_short Combining one and two photon polymerization for accelerated high performance (3 + 1)D photonic integration
title_sort combining one and two photon polymerization for accelerated high performance 3 1 d photonic integration
topic (3 + 1)d flash-printing
one-photon polymerization (opp)
single-mode waveguides
two-photon polymerization (tpp)
ultra-fast 3d additive manufacturing
url https://doi.org/10.1515/nanoph-2021-0733
work_keys_str_mv AT grabulosaadria combiningoneandtwophotonpolymerizationforacceleratedhighperformance31dphotonicintegration
AT moughamesjohnny combiningoneandtwophotonpolymerizationforacceleratedhighperformance31dphotonicintegration
AT portexavier combiningoneandtwophotonpolymerizationforacceleratedhighperformance31dphotonicintegration
AT brunnerdaniel combiningoneandtwophotonpolymerizationforacceleratedhighperformance31dphotonicintegration