| 摘要 |
The present document relates to a hybrid planar lightwave circuit (PLC) c omprising a waveguide circuit chip (21) and a silicon reflective diffraction grating chip (29) which is mounted to the waveguide circuit chip (21), via a trench (27) formed in the waveguide circuit chip (21), wherein the wavegui de circuit chip (21) comprises a high optical performance silica-on- silicon waveguide structure (22, 23, 24) formed on a silicon substrate (26) and whe rein the silicon reflective diffraction grating chip (29) comprises a separa te wafer grating substrate (31) and a reflective diffraction grating (28) fo rmed therein. The reflective diffraction grating (28) is formed in the wafer grating substrate (31) using a highly accurate, deep reactive ion etching ( DRIE) process thereby enabling a highly precise diffraction grating chip (29 ) to be fabricated. Consequently, the present hybrid planar lightwave circui t (PLC) includes a separately manufactured, highly precise, diffraction grat ing chip (29) and a separately manufactured, high quality, waveguide structu re (22, 23, 24) onto which the diffraction grating chip (29) is mounted, the reby enabling both the use of new DRIE technologies in the processing of the diffraction grating chip (29) and the use of flip-chip bonding when perform ing the diffraction grating chip (29) mountingoperation. The benefit of the disclosed diffraction grating-based, hybrid planar lightwave circuit (PLC) i s that, not only is the device able to be fabricated with an equally complex configuration to that of prior art hybrid PLCs, the device is able to be fa bricated more easily, using a technique (DRIE) that produces a very high-qua lity vertical etch with very low surface roughness. In particular, because t he reflective diffraction grating chip (29) is fabricated separately, from s ilicon or like materials, the DRIE technique is able to be used, unlike prio r art hybrid PLC fabrication methods which generally preclude the use of DRI E.
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