Silicon oxynitride platform for linear and nonlinear photonics at NIR wavelengths

The development of versatile and novel material platforms for integrated photonics is of prime importance in the perspective of future applications of photonic integrated circuits for quantum information and sensing. Here we present a low-loss material platform based on high-refractive index silicon oxynitride (SiON), which offers significant characteristics for linear and non-linear optics applications in a wide range of red/near-infrared wavelengths. The demonstrated propagation loss <1.5 dB/cm for visible wavelengths enables the realization of long and intricate circuitry for photon manipulations, as well as the realization of high quality factor resonators. In addition, the proposed SiON shows a high nonlinear index of 10−19 m2/W, improving the strength of nonlinear effects exploitable for on-chip photon generation schemes.