| Summary: | This report reviews the importance of the Chemical and Mechanical Planarization (CMP)
process for photonics applications and discusses the various factors that affect the quality
of CMP, and how to achieve optimality of the slurry recipe. Germanium-on-silicon (GOS)
waveguides are fabricated for the purpose of chemical sensing by identifying unique
chemical fingerprints that are present due to the different molecular vibrational modes, in
the mid-infrared region. A novel fabrication method for waveguide was experimented, by
using selective epitaxial germanium on silicon, an alternative to blanket germanium on
silicon. The selective epitaxial GOS has the potential for reduced propagation loss
compared to the more conventional blanket germanium on silicon, achieving a propagation
loss of 11.53dB/cm before CMP, and is expected to improve after CMP by reducing
thickness non-uniformity and improving material surface quality.
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