High-Q whispering gallery microdisk resonators based on silicon oxynitride

In this article we demonstrate a fully CMOS compatible fabrication process for the realization of microdisk resonators based on silicon oxynitride. The layer fabrication using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition is optimized in terms of surface roughness and internal material absorption. Resulting surface roughness due to the etching process is reduced by using optimized etching parameters. Whispering gallery modes of the fabricated microdisk resonators have been investigated by tapered fiber coupling and show quality factors as high as 106.