The influence of proximity effects in electron beam lithography on integrated photonic systems

Testing and improving integrated photonic components and systems requires rapid prototyping of various design variations. Electron beam lithography enables such rapid prototyping, allowing adjustments on a run-to-run basis with minimum linewidths on the order of 10 nm. Process variations arising from focusing, stitching, and proximity effects can impact the fidelity of fabricated designs. These variations can be minimized by applying design-based or dose-based proximity correction schemes. In this work, both correction methods are applied to integrated photonic systems containing a microring resonator and uniform and apodized grating couplers fabricated on deposited silicon test samples. Their transmission spectra are experimentally measured and compared to theoretical predictions to evaluate the effectiveness of the proximity correction schemes.