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ZnO Activation

sputtering of Zinc Oxide

ZnO shows a lot of interesting effects, such as the photo-elastic effect, piezo-electric effect, acousto-optical effect and the electro-optical effect. Its refractive index is ~2.0, showing a large material birefringence (~0.02).

In a Mach-Zehnder interferometer configuration, it has been applied as active material in an electro-optical modulator.

Our sputtered ZnO films can withstand temperatures up to 350 °C without degradation of its (electro-) optical characteristics, it enables its shielding to environmental influences using a passivation layer of PECVD-SiO2. When used in an optical waveguide geometry, it shows reasonable low attenuation values (~1 dB/cm @ 600 nm).

Reference

R.G. Heideman, J.G.E. Gardeniers, P.V. Lambeck, High quality ZnO layers with adjustable refractive indices for integrated optics applications, Optical Materials, no.4, p.741-755, 1995.