Silicon-on-Glass Dielectric Waveguide—Part II: For THz Applications

Abstract

A low-loss sub-millimeter-wave/THz integrated dielectric waveguide is presented. The proposed waveguide consists of a highly resistive Silicon (Si) guiding channel bonded to a glass substrate. To reduce the waveguide insertion loss due to the glass substrate, part of the substrate below the Si guiding channel is etched. A periodic configuration of supporting beams is used to hold the Si guiding channel over the glass substrate. A low-cost and high-precision fabrication process, which is fully compatible with current Si-based fabrication technologies, is developed for the proposed waveguide. Numerical simulations and experiments are conducted to investigate the performance of the proposed waveguide. Measured attenuation constant of the proposed waveguide is 0.0346 dB/ (average value) over the 440-500 GHz band.Index Terms-Dielectric waveguide, THz integrated circuit, Silicon-on-Glass (SOG) waveguide.

Millimeter-Wave Tunable Phase Shifter on Silicon-on-Glass Technology

“…High-resistivity Si is a highly transparent material over mmW and THz frequency ranges. However, the material loss in the Pyrex substrate increases with frequency over mmW and THz [3]. To reduce the effect of the Pyrex material loss, the glass substrates below the Si components are etched in periodic patterns.…”

“…A low-loss and low-cost mmW/THz integrated dielectric waveguide technology, called Silicon-on-Glass (SOG), was recently proposed by the authors [2], [3]. In this technology, all high-quality passive components are made of high-resistivity silicon (Si) and supported on a glass substrate.…”

“…Experiments of the SOG dielectric waveguides showed low attenuation constants up to 170 GHz [2]. A new suspended SOG waveguide configuration was demonstrated over the frequency range of 440-500 GHz with a measured average attenuation of [3]. In [3], part of the glass substrate below the Si channel was etched to reduce the waveguide attenuation.…”

“…A new suspended SOG waveguide configuration was demonstrated over the frequency range of 440-500 GHz with a measured average attenuation of [3]. In [3], part of the glass substrate below the Si channel was etched to reduce the waveguide attenuation. A periodic configuration of Si beams supported the Si waveguide on the etched glass substrate.…”

High-Efficiency Micromachined Sub-THz Channels for Low-Cost Interconnect for Planar Integrated Circuits

“…[12], [13], metallic waveguide [14]- [18], and dielectric waveguide [19], [20]. The dielectric waveguides with low loss dielectric material have much less losses than transmission lines and metallic waveguides since the conduction loss is avoided.…”