Optical component having a chemically etched guide with a ridge structure and its method of manufacture
AssigneeAlcatel
InventorsNicolas Bouche, Stephane Lovisa
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention concerns an optical component having at least one guide with a ridge structure obtained by chemical etching on a substrate made of semiconductor material, the ridge having a base and a top face, the guide having an outline with at least one curved section, the tangent at any point on the outline defining the local orientation (β) of the guide. According to the invention, the width of the base (weff) of the ridge is substantially constant all along the guide and the width of the top face (w) of the ridge varies according to the local orientation (β) of the guide with respect to the reference crystallographic direction (R) of the substrate.
Claims8
An optical component having at least one guide with a ridge structure obtained by chemical etching on a substrate made of semiconductor material, the ridge having a base and a top face, the guide having an outline with at least one curved section, the tangent at any point on the outline defining a local orientation of the guide (β), characterised in that the width of the base (weff) of the ridge is substantially controlled all along the guide and the width of the top face (w) of the ridge varies according to the orientation (β) of the guide with respect to the reference crystallographic direction (R) of the substrate.
A component according to one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the guide is produced on a substrate made of III-V semiconductor material and has a bottom stop layer made from quaternary semiconductor material.
A method of manufacturing an optical component produced on a substrate made of semiconductor material and having a guide with a ridge structure, the guide having an outline with at least one curved section, the tangent at any point on the outline defining a local orientation (β) of the guide, the said structure being obtained by at least one step of chemical etching through a mask defining in particular the width of the top face (w) of the ridge, characterised in that the said width (w) of the top face varies according to the local orientation β of the guide with respect to the reference crystallographic direction (R) of the substrate and according to the required width of the base (weff) of the ridge.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.