Efficient Thermal Tunning of Photonic Devices

In this paper, we exploit high refractive index silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) thin films. SiOC thin films deposited by RF sputtering were used to simulate, design, and fabricate photonic devices such as channel waveguides and Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs). The fabricated micro-photonic structures were tested on a controlled optical setup to estimate the thermo optic coefficient (TOC) at the standard telecommunication wavelength 1550 nm. With refractive index of 2.2 the thermo-optic coefficient of silicon oxycarbide using Mach-Zehnder interferometer was measured as 2.6 x 10-4 RIU/℃ that is highest among the dielectric platforms. Our research presents silicon oxycarbide as potential platform for the realization of highly efficient reconfigurable integrated photonic systems.