Large area transferred silicon nanomembrane photonic devices on unconventional substrates

Silicon microelectronics on unconventional substrates has led to numerous unprecedented applications. Inspired by the great success, it is a natural desire to integrate silicon photonic circuitry on unconventional substrates in the hope of extending the applicability range of silicon photonics to a multitude of novel hybrid silicon photonic devices. However, photonic devices usually have larger dimensions and more complicated morphologies. The transfer method used in electronics cannot be applied directly to transfer photonic devices. Here, we propose a low temperature transfer technique based on adhesive bonding and deep reactive ion etching. A defect-free transfer of 2 cm × 2 cm, 250 nm thick silicon nanomembrane onto a glass slide has been demonstrated. Single mode waveguides and splitters fabricated on the transferred SiNM exhibit comparable results to those fabricated on silicon-on-insulator. With a low process temperature, this method can be easily applied to transfer silicon nanomembranes onto various types of substrates.