Tellurium oxide thin film waveguides for integrated photonics

Abstract

We report the fabrication of Tellurium oxide films with deposited propagation losses that are sufficiently low to allow the fabrication of high quality planar integrated optical devices. Stoichiometric low loss films were produced by reactive magnetron RF sputtering and the effect of a wide range of sputtering parameters on stoichiometry, refractive index, Raman spectra and optical loss of thin films were investigated. As deposited TeO2 films with propagation losses below 0.1 dB/cm at 1550nm have been achieved which are therefore well suited for integrated optical applications.