Silicon photonics plays a key role in many applications ranging from communications, AI, quantum, sensing, defense, LiDAR and more. The key advantage of silicon photonics is cost. Silicon is inherently cheap, and the infrastructure to fabricate silicon devices already exists in the electronics industry, which can be exploited for low-cost silicon photonics.

This three-day hands-on training course provides industry, particularly those seeking to better understand the challenges of silicon photonics fabrication, with an opportunity to fabricate their own silicon photonics devices in a cleanroom facility.

The course will focus on six technology areas; 1) Deep-UV projection lithography for patterning designed devices into a photosensitive resist layer; 2) Etching of silicon waveguides; 3) Cladding deposition; 4) Metallisation; 5) Flip-chip bonding; and 6) Wafer-scale-testing. Course attendees will learn the details of how silicon photonics devices are fabricated and gain a better understanding of the tolerances involved in the fabrication processes. They will learn technologies that are comparable to volume manufacturing technologies.