Waveguide Loss

Waveguide Loss

As published in the PDK documentation, 480nm wide silicon (SE) waveguides have a propagation loss of <2.5dB/cm around 1550nm. As expected, larger waveguides (500 or 550nm) will have lower losses and smaller (450 or 400nm) will have higher losses. 1.5um wide silicon nitride (FN or SN) waveguides have a propagation loss of <2.0dB/cm around 1550nm. These are "upper limit" or worst-case losses. Typical losses are about 0.5db/cm better but can vary from run to run or chip to chip.

Waveguides on the passives (PAS) MPW runs will have lower propagation losses due to the lesser process complexity.

Please note: the fab team has developed a new, lower loss platform for both silicon (SE) and silicon nitride (SiN) waveguides and edge coupling. The impact of these process changes on the APSUNY PDK components is currently being evaluated before this platform in offered as an MPW. For questions or status please contact support@aimphotonics.com. 


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