Planar optical waveguide thin films grown by microwave ECR PECVD

Optical thin films of silicon dioxide were deposited from an electron cyclo tron resonance Si-4/O-2/Ar plasma onto a radio frequency biased substrate a t a pressure of a few 10(-1) Pa, 100 W microwave power (f = 2.45 GHz) and l ow wafer temperature (< 120<degrees>C). The optical and structural properti es of films were characterized using FTIR, XPS, AFM, STM and multicolor ell ipsometry. The relationship between the growth rates and deposition paramet ers was investigated and the characterizations of the films with a rf subst rate bias were compared to those without bias. Furthermore, 1.17% of Ge-dop ed silica films were successfully deposited by feeding into GeCl4. The conc entration of Ge could be precisely controlled to satisfy the requirements o f different planar optical waveguides and devices. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scienc e B.V. All rights reserved.