Chalcogenide micro and nanostructures and applications

Chalcogenides, which are glasses consist of S, Se and Te elements, are promising materials for photonics as silicon for modern electronics, due to their extraordinary material properties such as high nonlinearity and wide mid-IR transparency. However, the biggest barrier before their full extend technological exploitation is the difficulty in utilization of these unique material properties within photonic devices with various forms of desired geometries including nanowires, microspheres, and microdisks as necessitated by unique optical functionalities for specific applications, some of which are optical microresonators, modulators, and photodetection devices. In this study, the author explore new routes for the fabrication of on-chip photonic elements with chalcogenides and consider a low cost high-yield production method with a compatible and extendable integration phase. The study illustrates production of chalcogenide optical cavities embedded in a polymer fiber, on-chip integration of the cavities having spherical, spheroidal, and ellipsoidal boundaries, and results of their optical characterizations. Besides the fabrication of active photonic devices with electro-optical capabilities, tapered chalcogenide fibers are also considered as evanescent couplers for the resonators of high index materials. In addition, a large area chalcogenide nanowire based photodetection device is demonstrated including fabrication of photoconductive pixels, design of an electronic readout circuit, development of a custom software for a pattern detection application.