Effect of waveguide thickness layer on

spectral resonance of a Guided Mode

Resonance Filter
Muhammad Rizwan Saleem1,2,*, Rizwan Ali1, Seppo Honkanen1, Jari Turunen1
1
University of Eastern Finland, Institute of Photonics, P.O. Box 111, FI–80101, Joensuu, Finland.
2
National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), School of Chemical and Materials
Engineering (SCME), Sector H–12, Islamabad, Pakistan.
*Corresponding author: Rizwanphy@gmail.com

Abstract—We demonstrated cost-effective Guided Mode
Resonance Filters (GMRFs) that are diffraction
gratings with spectrally narrow reflectance peaks due
to resonance anomalies and couple incident light into a
semi-guided mode in a corrugated waveguide. The
GMRF consists of a single high index dielectric layer on
a periodically corrugated transparent substrate to
couple light. The GMRFs are designed by Fourier Modal
Method (FMM), a numerical tool based on rigorous
calculations of electromagnetic diffraction theory. In
FMM the field is expanded in different regimes with
the application of boundary conditions at each
interface. GMRFs in polymer materials (polycarbonate)
are fabricated by Nano- Imprint Lithography (NIL)
from a master silicon- stamp. The master Si-stamp is
fabricated by the exposure of Electron Beam
Lithography (EBL) on a negative & binary tone resist,
Hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) to make sub-wavelength
grating structures. The fabricated gratings are coated
by a high refractive index TiO2 amorphous thin layer
using Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). GMRFs are
demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally to
shift spectral resonance towards longer wavelengths
with the increase in TiO2 thickness.
I. INTRODUCTION
Extensive studies are carried out to explore
nanophotonic structures for a variety of potential
applications such as quantum dots, metallic
nanoparticles, nanotubes, microresonators, photonic
crystals, porous nanomaterials and biosensors [1].
Resonant waveguide grating RWG structures or
Guided Mode Resonant Filters (GMRFs) are
diffractive optical elements
particular wavelength and angle of incidence for
with a periodic dielectric medium which have
primary applications in narrow-band plane wave
reflection filters [2]. Fundamental working principle
of a GMRF is different to that of a multilayer
thin-film reflector. The former is based on the
excitation of leaky waveguide modes while latter
depends on the multiple-wave interference along the
direction of propagation [3].
To understand GMRFs: Wood observed sharp
abrupt changes in reflectivity or transmittivity
around 1900 [4]. The observed intensity changes with
wavelength or angle contrasted with the normally
smooth diffraction efficiency curves. Since, the
origin of these abrupt intensity changes was unclear
which named as anomalies. Some of these Rayleigh
anomalies were due to emergence of a spectral
order at grazing incidence. However, in 1965, Hessel
and Oliner [5] investigated the origin of another
type of anomaly, called “resonance anomaly” that
was due to the excitation of leaky waveguide
mode(s). A phenomenological treatment of grating
anomalies on the diffraction efficiencies was
presented by Popov et al. [6] Thereby, the abrupt
changes in diffraction efficiency near an anomaly
led researchers to investigate the use of resonance for
filtering applications. Dielectric diffraction gratings
that used to enhance the resonant anomaly
characteristics are called GMRFs or RWG
structures. These structures develop the free-space
nano-optical devices that provide 100 % reflection
of a plane wave at a

978-1-4799-2319-9/14/$31.00 © 2014 IEEE

Proceedings of 2014 11th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST)
Islamabad, Pakistan, 14th – 18th January, 2014 39
a particular polarization of incident light. The
λ
resonance wavelength or angle of incidence is
designed in a minimal reflectance region to exploit
the resonance anomalies. In general, GMRFs are
polarization sensitive in one- dimensional gratings
i.e., the central resonance peak occurs at two
different spectral locations depending on the
polarization state of incident light; TE (transverse
electric) or TM (transverse magnetic). Such
distinctive features make GMRFs suitable for many
applications such as narrow-band filters, polarization
selectors, laser- cavity mode selectors [7] and
security devices [8]. If one uses an electro-optic Figure 1. Basic GMRF structure with a binary replicated profile
in a polymer coated by a TiO2 cover layer.
material, the resonance peak could be tuned by a
shift, thus yielding devices such as optical
modulators, optical switches, and tunable filters [2]. In the present paper, a filtering design solution is
Similarly, the central resonance wavelength is proposed with its experimental demonstration. The
highly sensitive to the chemical reactions occurring spectral shift in a GMRF by varying the thickness of
at the surface of filter’s element for biosensor the waveguide layer i.e., the high index amorphous
applications where the interaction of a target analyte cover layer of TiO2 material on imprinted sub-
with a bio-selective layer on the sensor surface wavelength grating structure has been discussed. Fig.
yields measureable spectral or angular shift to identify 1 illustrates an ideal profile of a GMRF we are
the binding event [9]. aiming for. We first have a polymer
The phenomena of GMRF are due to resonant (polycarbonate) substrate with a rectangular grating
coupling of an incident plane wave with the profile characterized by ridge height h = 120 nm,
waveguide mode by diffraction on the grating. The period d = 425 nm, ridge width w = 268 nm, so that
reflected and transmitted waves consist of two we can define the structure duty cycle as ff = w/d =
0.63. The grating profile is covered by a thin
coherent components. The zero-order Fresnel
dielectric TiO2 layer of thicknesses t = 60 and 75
reflection/transmission from/through the corrugated
nm, grown by Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). The
profile and the waves coupled to the waveguide
GMRF is illuminated by a linearly polarized plane
mode(s) which are reradiated as leaky mode(s) into
wave (TE polarization: electric field vector vibrates
both adjacent media. The narrowband reflection or
parallel to the direction of grating lines) from air at
transmission depends on the phase difference of
an angle of incidence θi = 20° and the spectral
both interfering components. The phase varies in the
efficiency curve of the specularly reflected plane
vicinity of resonance up to π. At some localized
wave obtained at θr = 20°. The paper is organized
region the phase difference between the retransmitted
as follows: first the structure design is presented in
and direct transmitted (Fresnel) waves becomes
Section 2. In Section 3, fabrication and replication
opposite. If the amplitude of both the interfering
of GMRFs is demonstrated. The theoretical and
waves is equal, the resulting transmission is zero and
experimental results for the spectral shifts due to
all the energy confine in reflection. This result was
increase of an effective refractive index are
first shown analytically for shallow grating
described in Section 4 and finally conclusions are
structures and latter for any grating structure having
shown in Section 5.
vertical symmetry. In view of the result, 100 %
theoretical diffraction efficiency is always possible at II. STRUCTURE DESIGN
a specific angle or wavelength of incident light.
By appropriate choices of parameters d, ff, h, t,
n1, n2, n3, and θi, we can obtain a GMRF with
100 % reflectance for TE-polarized light at a
desired resonance wavelength λr. In our paper we
use Fourier Modal Method (FMM) to design the
GMRFs for TE illumination at center resonance
wavelength λr = 851.1 nm at t = 60

Proceedings of 2014 11th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST)
Islamabad, Pakistan, 14th – 18th January, 2014
40
 nm & and λr = 879.3 nm at t = 75 nm for θi =
20°. Our material choices fix the refractive
indices: we use the room temperature values n1 =
1, n2 = 2.32 and n3 = 1.57 for air, TiO2 and
polycarbonate, respectively at a wavelength of
850 nm. In the design d, ff, h, and t are therefore,
treated as variable parameters.
FMM is used to calculate the specular
reflectance of GMRF for TE-polarized light.
This method is based to calculate the field in the
corrugated (grating) region by dividing it in
stacked layers such that the field in each region
is calculated which is then matched with the
adjacent regions by applying boundary
conditions. The field is expanded as permittivity
function and Fourier coefficients. Finally,
calculated field inside grating region is coupled
with the field in homogeneous regions which
was expanded as Rayleigh expansion.
Figure 2. Calculated specular reflectance of a GMRF: (a)
with TiO2 thicknesses t = 60 nm and 75 nm. (b) Simulated
specular reflectance shift in wavelength with the variation in
thickness of amorphous TiO2 film.
III. FABRICATION AND REPLICATION OF
GMRF’s STRUCTURE
The fabrication process starts from a 2"
Proceedings of 2014 11th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST)
Islamabad, Pakistan, 14th – 18th January, 2014
diameter Si wafer with <100> crystal orientation.
The wafer is first spin coated by a high resolution
negative binary resist HSQ XR-
1541 from Dow Corning, with constituents isobutyl
methyl ketone, hydrogen silsesquioxane, and toluene.
The rotation speed and spin coating time are
adjusted so as to get film thickness of 120 nm, which
was the desired height of grating structure. The HSQ
film thickness was measured by Dektak 150 stylus
surface profilometer manufactured by Veeco
Metrology. The grating patterns are then written on
the HSQ resist over an area of 25 mm2 by Vistec
EBPG5000+ES HR electron beam patterning tool at
a scaled dose of 4800 μC/cm2. After exposure, the
resist is developed with MP
351 developer, which contains disodium tetraborate
decahydrate and sodium hydroxide and water
solution with the ration 1:3, followed by rinsing with
isopropanol and water for 90 and 30 seconds,
respectively. After development, the sample is heat
treated for 3 hours at a temperature of 300 °C in an
oven. The heat treatment drives HSQ to become
more fragile, depicting properties analogous to silica
as a hard stamping material. The heat treated sample
is then subjected to surface treatment to deposit a
silane layer with silanization solution composed of a
mixture of HFE 7100 engineering solvent with 0.2
% of trimethylhydroxysilane (TMS) in presence of
nitrogen atmosphere to act as a de- adhesive layer
for stamping into polycarbonate substrate [10].
The replication was performed in polycarbonate
sheets with thickness of a few hundred microns (from
Makrofol DE) by using Obducat Eitre imprinter. In
the replication process the stamp is heated at a
temperature of
165 °C, slightly above the glass transition
temperature of polycarbonate. Then a pressure of 50
bar was applied for 2 minutes and finally air cooling
was applied. Replication was followed by thin film
deposition (60 and 75 nm) of amorphous TiO2 by
using Beneq TFS 500 ALD reactor at a deposition
temperature of 120
°C with commonly known precursor TiCl4 and H2O
materials. Si wafers were also deposited by TiO2 films
in the same experiment to find out exact film
thickness in relation to the number of ALD cycles and
to determine the refractive index of deposited
amorphous TiO2 film with ellipsometer [10].
Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) image of
replicated binary grating in polycarbonate and
coated by a thin
41
 cover layer of amorphous TiO2 film by ALD is
shown in Fig. 3.
Figure 3. SEM image of replicated binary grating profile in
polycarbonate and coated with a cover layer of amorphous TiO2
film of 60 nm thickness by ALD.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. 2a shows the calculated field from the
proposed grating structure at TiO2 thicknesses of 60
and 75 nm for TE-polarized light. Fig. 2b shows
the simulated results carried out to predict spectral
shift and retain maximum (100 %) reflectance with
the variation in thickness of waveguide (TiO2) layer.
A spectral shift of ~28 nm is calculated theoretically
with an increase in TiO2 thickness by ~15 nm. On
experimentally measuring the fabricated GMRFs by
spectroscopic ellipsometer, the specular reflectance
resonance peaks show resonance central
wavelengths at 827 nm and 851 nm for TiO2
thickness of 60 nm and 75 nm, respectively as shown
in Fig. 4. Experimentally, a spectral shift of ~24
nm is obtained with an increase in TiO2 thickness
by ~15 nm, thus experimental results closely agree
with the theoretically calculated results, shown in
Figs. 2 and 4.
The spectral shift might appear due to increase in
effective refractive index of waveguide that result in
an interaction of GMR structure with longer
wavelengths to show resonance characteristics.
Furthermore, the theoretically calculated and
experimentally measured peaks show different
spectral locations which are due to a slight
deviation from ideal profile shown in Fig. 1, surface
roughness, true refractive indices of all the materials,
profile linewidths and slight variation in the
periodicity of the structure after an intricate
fabrication process. The reflectance efficiency
of experimentally predicted spectrum shown in
Proceedings of 2014 11th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST)
Islamabad, Pakistan, 14th – 18th January, 2014
Fig. 4 with t = 75 nm slightly decreased which is due
to increase in the full width at half maximum
(FWHM).
Such nanophotonic devices have significant
use in filtering applications to tune at desired
resonance wavelength by only varying the
thickness of the deposited layer through an
independent process of deposition i.e., ALD,
irrespective to change structure periodicity and
other geometrical parameters during an extensive
fabrication process.
Figure 4. Experimentally measured spectral shift in reflectance
spectra of GMRFs with thin amorphous TiO2 cover layers of 60
and 75 nm.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Narrow spectral reflectance linewidths of cost-
effective GMRFs are shown theoretically and
experimentally with a good agreement. The
GMRFs are designed by FMM based on the
rigorous calculation of electromagnetic diffraction
theory for two waveguide layer thicknesses with
amorphous TiO2 film grown by ALD method. The
sub-wavelength grating structures are fabricated by
first making a master stamp on Si substrate with
HSQ resist and then use this stamp for
Nanoimprinting into polycarbonate thin sheets.
Finally, the replicated structures are coated by
high index amorphous TiO2 films of different
thicknesses of 60 and 75 nm.
The demonstrated GMR filters show spectral
shift of ~24 nm with an increase in TiO2
thickness by ~15 nm towards longer wavelengths
that might result due to increase in effective
refractive index of waveguide layer. Such
nanophotonic devices have significant
applications in filtering to tune at desired
42
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Proceedings of 2014 11th International Bhurban Conference on Applied Sciences & Technology (IBCAST)
Islamabad, Pakistan, 14th – 18th January, 2014
43