Fabrication of surface plasmon waveguides on Cytop

Abstract

This thesis discusses Surface Plasmon waveguides on Cytop and is divided into two topics. The first topic covers the fabrication and physical characterization of thin metal stripe waveguides on Cytop. The fabrication process is fully described and generally consists of a Cytop layer deposition and cure process and a bi-layer metal liftoff process. Physical characterisation was conducted on structures having undergone intermediate process steps and on finished structures, and results are presented and discussed. Optical microsope, SEM, AFM inspections and Metricon measurements were used to characterize the devices. Working waveguides on finished device wafers were confirmed by observing infrared images of output modes. The second topic describes and presents the attenuation measurements and the technique used for exciting the surface plasmons of the fabricated waveguides. The technique uses a tapered polarization maintaining optical fibre positioned in direct contact with the structure such that the slow mode of the fibre couples through partial modal overlap to the surface Plasmon propagating thereon.