Mid-Infrared Hyperuniform Disordered Solids Waveguide Devices with Morphology Engineering and Wall-Network Regulation

Abstract

Hyperuniform disordered solids (HUDS) waveguides, a type of emerging artificial photonic bandgap (PBG) devices, are demonstrated to possess large, complete, and isotropic PBGs, being promising for developing applications in optoelectronics, nonlinear optics, and sensing. However, optical losses of HUDS waveguides are usually limited by giant light scattering from the irregular distribution of HUDS cells. Herein, HUDS waveguide devices are demonstrated with low optical losses and large PBGs by exploring a morphology-engineering and wall-network-regulation method of developing HUDS structures. The results show that the proposed device can achieve a 3.0 dB transmittance improvement for a 36-µm-long silicon HUDS waveguide. Based on the proposed HUDS structure, a waveguide-coupled HUDS-cladding nanocavity is also demonstrated with a quality factor of ≈70 at 2.250 µm wavelengths and a theoretical refractive index sensitivity of 446 nm RIU⁻¹. The study opens an avenue to develop intriguing HUDS waveguide devices for on-chip applications.