Manufacture of optical integrated circuit

Abstract

Abstract PURPOSE:To manufacture the optical integrated circuit, which is manufactured easily, in which a coupling at high efficiency of both a passive waveguide and an active waveguide is enabled and which does not interfere in the operation of a device on the passive waveguide and the active waveguide, by removing upper sections at the stepped difference of a semiconductor substrate in each waveguide and an intermediate layer and forming end surfaces mutually corresponding to the active waveguide and the passive waveguide in approximately parallel. CONSTITUTION:A stepped difference 11 is formed previously on the InP substrate 1 through etching. When forming the stepped difference, various stepped-difference shapes can be selected by selecting etching liquids and substrate orientations, but the stepped difference close to verticality is preferable. An InP buffer layer 2, the InGaAsP active waveguide layer 3, the InP intermediate layer 4, the InGaAsP passive waveguide layer 5 and an InP clad layer 6 are grown continuously on the substrate to which the stepped difference is formed. The depth of the stepped difference and the thickness of the intermediate layer 4 are controlled previously so that the positions of the active waveguide layer 3 and the passive waveguide layer 5 coincide on both sides of the stepped difference at that time. The stepped difference section of the substrate is removed, and the end surfaces of the active waveguide and the passive waveguide are formed. Accordingly, beams 12 generated or amplified by the active waveguide 3 couple with the passive waveguide 5 while interposing a minute clearance removed through etching.

Inventors

• 👤 Masahiko Fujiwara
• 👤 雅彦 藤原

Bibliographic Details