Evaporated aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) single-mode waveguides with less than 0.7 dB/cm propagation loss at 405 nm

Pleased to share our latest publication – congrats to first author Tunahan Gök for driving this work forward.

In this work, we present single-mode waveguides fabricated from evaporated amorphous Al₂O₃, achieving propagation losses as low as 0.68 ± 0.03 dB/cm at 405 nm. The waveguides, produced using a Cr hard mask and EBL on a 3 µm SiO₂ layer, show excellent surface quality (~0.4 nm RMS roughness) and support tight bend radii.

🔬 These results highlight the potential of Al₂O₃ for applications in:

– Quantum computing with trapped ions
– Compact UV laser systems
– UV spectroscopy and microscopy
– Biochemical imaging and sensing

Title: Evaporated aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) single-mode waveguides with less than 0.7 dB/cm propagation loss at 405 nm

Authors: Tunahan Gök, Dr. Rijil Thomas, Anastasiia Sorokina, Steffen Sauer, Stefanie Kroker, Stephan Suckow, and Max Lemme

This work originated from our BMFTR funded project ATIQ, where we and many partners work on building demonstrators of trapped ion quantum computers.

🔗 You can read the full paper here open access.