Fabrication of silicon master using dry and wet etching for optical waveguide by thermal embossing technique

Masters for the fabrication of planar optical waveguides were fabricated from (100) silicon wafers. Deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) and wet chemical etching were used to form smooth rectangular patterns on the masters. The roughness of the etched patterns was small enough to fabricate planar optical waveguides. The treatment of a master surface with oxide and perfluoalkylsilane (PFAS) improved further the separation of the master and the substrate. The materials that were used as underclad and core layers were organic-inorganic hybrids called as-hybrid materials (HYBRIMERs). We successfully replicated the waveguides with the fabricated masters.