UC San Diego

Photonics is an evolving field allowing for optical devices to be made cost effectively using standard semiconductor fabrication techniques, which in turn enables integration with microelectronic chips. Chip scale photonics will play an increasing role in the future of communications as the demand for bandwidth and reduced power consumption per bit continues to grow. Tunable optical circuit components are one of the essential technologies in the development of photonic analogues for classical electronic devices, where tunable photonic resonant structures allow for altering of their electromagnetic spectrum and find applications in optical switching, filtering, buffering, lasers and biosensors. The scope of this work is focused on tunable resonant structures for photonic integrated circuits. Specifically, this work demonstrates active tuning of silicon photonic resonant structures using the properties of dye doped nematic liquid crystals, temperature stabilization of silicon photonics using the passive properties of liquid crystals, and the effects of low density plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) claddings on ring resonator device performance