Design of microheater for thermo-optic tuning of silicon photonic filters

Microheater is the small-scaled version of resistive heater and uses Joule heating for heat generation. Having a low footprint and power consumption has enabled the microheater to be used in many areas. High thermo-optic coefficient of silicon has allowed this structure to be used in silicon photonics studies. This work focuses on designing an efficient microheater for our photonic filters. First, the appropriate microheater geometry was determined because the geometry of this structure has a crucial influence on the power consumption of the microheater and the temperature uniformity of the device to be heated. After the proper geometric structure has been chosen, the determination of the properties of this microheater is divided into two parts. These features play an essential role in reducing the temperature difference in the heated device. In the first part, the separation between the heater lines was determined. In the second part, the amount of overflow of the microheater on the device was designated. After specifying all features of the microheater structure, its electrical and thermal properties were investigated in the simulation environment. Finally, it was compared with the best-in-class microheaters, and the reasons for the performance differences were examined.