矽光電為發展積體微波光電裡最熱門的一環其最主要的優勢在於它與目前已發展成熟的互補金屬氧化半導體製程相容，由於它矽層與氧化層折射率的高差異性，可以有效地將光侷限在極小的波導裡。現今，新的訊息傳輸著重在提高光通訊系統的效率與無線存取網路，調變訊息的方法與光的相位息息相關，這正意味著雙折射的重要性。然而，色散也是另一個造成訊號失真的原因。在本篇論文裡，我們將由實驗表現出絕緣層上覆矽光波導的雙折射效應與色散值之特性。

在各種量測雙折射特性的方法中，低同調干涉技術擁有較高的解析度10-5,這與待測元件的長度與以高同調雷射光源產生的光學尺的解析有關。高度5m、寬度5m和蝕刻深度2.5m的絕緣層上覆矽光波導雙折射值為7.9x10-4；另一種利用陣列波導光柵量測雙折射的實驗方法得到的值為4.7x10-4。

飛行時間法(TOF)、調制相位偏移法(MPS)和干涉法是目前最主要量測色散值的三種技術。相較於在工業界最常被使用的飛行時間法與調制相位偏移法而言，干涉法是比較廉價且有效的測量方式。在先前已量測雙折射效應的同樣幾何形狀的光波導上，無論是干涉儀的兩臂光程差是否相同，所得到的色散值約為-900 ps/(nm km)。

我們成功地利用干涉技術去驗證5m厚的絕緣層上覆矽光波導之雙折射與色散值，我們的最終目標是發展一個穩定性高且精確度高的方法同時觀測到光學系統的性質。

A silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform with the big advantage of the mature complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible processing has been well developed to be a highly integrated microphonics due to its large refractive-index difference between silicon and silicon dioxide layers. Currently, new modulation formats are being proposed to enhance the performance and spectral efficiency of optical communication systems in core, metro, and access networks. The formats are mainly the optical phase related technologies, which imply the importance of birefringence. However, the chromatic dispersion is another important factor for the signal distortion. In this thesis, the methodology to characterize the birefringence and chromatic dispersion on SOI waveguides will be experimentally demonstrated.

Among a variety of birefringence characteristics, the optical low-coherence interferometer (OLCI) illustrates a higher resolution, 10-6, which is related to the device length and optical ruler generated by the high-coherence laser source. The birefringence of the SOI waveguides with the thickness of 5m, the width of 5m and the etch depth of 2.5m was demonstrated as 7.9x10-4. Another filtering type of array waveguide grating (AWG) was also taken for verification and shown as the similar birefringence of 4.7x10-4.

Time of flight (TOF), modulation phase shift (MPS) and interferometric methods are three main approaches for chromatic dispersion measurement techniques. Compared with the most widely used commercial dispersion, TOF and MPS, the interferometric technique is a less expensive and effective approach. The SOI waveguides with the same geometrical dimensions in the birefringence testing was showing a high dispersion of around -900 ps/(nm km) from the balanced and unbalanced arms of the interferometer.

We successfully utilized the interference techniques to demonstrate the birefringence and chromatic dispersion of 5m thick SOI waveguides. Our final goal is to develop a reliable and precise characteristic tool to in-situ monitor the optical system performance.

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