Thermal Stability of SU-8 Low-Loss Optical Coupling

Interconnects at 850 nm
Ronghua Zhou, Mathieu Versace, Benjamin Boisnard, Mayte Gómez-Castaño,
Carlos Viana, Jean-Luc Polleux, Anne-Laure Billabert

To cite this version:

Ronghua Zhou, Mathieu Versace, Benjamin Boisnard, Mayte Gómez-Castaño, Carlos Viana, et al..
Thermal Stability of SU-8 Low-Loss Optical Coupling Interconnects at 850 nm. IEEE Photonics
Technology Letters, 2024, 36 (3), pp.159-162. �10.1109/LPT.2023.3339993�. �hal-04413381�

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Thermal stability of SU-8 low-loss optical coupling
interconnects at 850 nm
Ronghua Zhou, Mathieu Versace, Benjamin Boisnard, Mayte Gómez-Castaño, Carlos Viana, Jean-Luc Polleux and
Anne-Laure Billabert
Abstract— Ultra-low-loss optical coupling between photonic
circuits and components is crucial in many applications such as
photonic quantum computing, sensing or optical
communications. This paper presents the thermal stability of a
SU-8 based taper optical interconnect by characterizing its
optical coupling efficiency (CE) and geometrical shape
robustness when the polymer withstands high temperatures. The
taper is heated up from 280 °C to 400 °C over a period of 1 min
to 120 min. The experimental results show that the coupling
efficiency degradation is linear with the duration of the high
temperature period, while the relation between the temperature
and duration is found to fit a logarithm model at a defined CE
loss. It provides a useful approach to predict the maximum
temperature and duration time before exceeding a given CE loss,
and therefore to predict the maximum ratings for the material
processing. A limit temperature-duration curve for a maximum
0.1 dB optical coupling degradation is extracted. It is then shown
that the SU-8 tapers can withstand a temperature of 300 °C for
up to 9 min, and 350 °C for up to 1min and 30 s with less than
0.1 dB optical loss. The structural mechanical stability of the
taper is confirmed up to 400 °C for 1 hour well above the
aforementioned optical limit.
Index Terms—Optical coupling, Optical interconnects, Photonics,
Polymer, SU8, Temperature limits, Thermal Stability
I. INTRODUCTION
U
ltra-low-loss optical coupling between photonic
circuits and components is crucial in the domain of
photonic quantum, sensing and optical
communications, computing [1]–[3]. SU-8 polymer is an
epoxy-based negative photoresist. Since the first introduction
by IBM [4], SU-8 has been widely adopted in the
microfabrication world. Thanks to its outstanding properties,
such as flexibility, high aspect ratio compared to silicon and
Ronghua Zhou (e-mail : ronghua.zhou@icon-photonics.com), Mathieu
Versace (e-mail: mathieu.versace@icon-photonics.com), Benjamin Boisnard
(e-mail: benjamin.boisnard@icon-photonics.com), Mayte Gómez Castaño
(e-mail: mayte.gomez@icon-photonics.com), Carlos Viana (e-mail:
calors.viana@icon-photonics.com) and Jean-Luc Polleux (e-mail:
jean-luc.polleux@icon-photonics.com) are with ICON Photonics, 77420,
Champs-sur-Marne, France.
Anne-Laure Billabert (e-mail: anne-laure.billabert@lecnam.net) and
Ronghua Zhou (e-mail : ronghua.zhou@icon-photonics.com) are with
Université Gustave Eiffel, CNAM, CNRS, ESYCOM, 75003, Paris, France.
1
high transparency, SU-8 is increasingly used in MEMS and in
waveguide applications as a structural material [5], [6].
Recently SU-8 has been also exploited to fabricate ultra-low-
loss optical coupling structures based on short vertical tapered
optical waveguides [7], [8].
Understanding the SU-8 behaviors in extreme circumstances
is of great importance not only for the proper processing, but
also for use and product aging. High temperatures may be
encountered within the various processing steps, such as reflow
soldering [9]. Furthermore, SU-8 cracking and pilling from the
substrate have been observed during humidity tests [10].
In the field of polymers, the aspects of thermal degradation in
terms of their mechanism and experimental measurement of
mechanical properties variation have been well
investigated [11].
The mechanism of polymer thermal degradation studied in
the literature involves polymer backbone, complete
degradation and cross-linking processes [12]. These processes
indispensably lead to the change of mechanical and optical
properties of the polymer. From the perspective of mechanics,
elevated temperature causes the reduction of polymer structure
weight, resulting in the shrinkage of the structure [13].
Additionally, since the coefficients of thermal expansion of
polymer and the substrate are usually different, when exposed
to high temperature, a mismatch strain occurs in the structure.
As a result, bending effects can arise as well as an eventual
detach of the polymer layer from the substrate [14].
Since SU-8 is a polymer material, it shares many common
behaviors with other polymer materials regarding thermal
degradation. A significant change of Young’s modulus has been
evaluated by testing a SU-8 based dog-bone specimen under
various temperatures [15]. A creep test is also performed with
SU-8 samples at 150 °C [16]. Moreover, SU-8 surface
topography, modulus of elasticity and hardness are investigated
at 100 °C testing temperature [17]. The shrinkage of SU-8 at
high temperatures is described experimentally during
carbonization conditions as well [18].
However, most of the research to date in SU-8 thermal
degradation is mainly aimed at its mechanical properties. A lack
of information is then present on its optical properties which are
crucial for optical interconnects. Indeed, it is well known that
applying different hard bake temperature varies the refractive
index of SU-8 [19]. This change in refractive index results from
the fact that heating changes the molecular weight of SU-8. A
model of refractive index as a function of molecular weight is
 2
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presented in [20]. Nevertheless, to our knowledge, few studies transmission through the taper structure and through the glass.
yielded SU-8 optical absorption and its model, particularly It is worth noting that there are some factors that result in
under high thermal constraints. systematic errors, such as laser power variation and reflection.
In this study, we utilized SU-8 vertical tapered waveguides The power reflection of SU-8 is assumed to be equal to the
to heat from 280 °C to 400 °C for duration varying from a few reflection on the glass substrate. The total systematic error of
minutes to hours. By means of comparing their coupling the measurement of coupling efficiency is therefore
efficiency, an absorption model as a function of time and considered as ±2%.
temperature is concluded. Section II describes the experimental
procedures for the study, including the description of the
structures under test and the measurement protocol definition.
Section III describes the experimental results and derives them
to define a limit degradation model as a function of maximum
temperature, heat duration and limit acceptable optical coupling
degradation level. Finally, section IV provides a discussion
while a conclusion is given in section V.
Fig. 1. Light coupling measurement setup bench.
II. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND MODELING
The SU-8 taper is fabricated by standard photolithographic
Figure. 2. presents the optical microscope photography of
technology [21]. A 4-inch glass wafer is used as the substrate
samples (a) before heating, (b) after heating at 300 °C for 6 min
because of its high optical transmission. In order to later
and (c) after heating at 400 °C for 60 min. The material color
measure the light transmission only through the tapers, an
turned slightly red after a few minutes at 300 °C instead of
aluminum layer patterned with diaphragms was deposited on
remaining transparent. In the same way, as the temperature
top of the glass wafer by photolithography and wet etching.
increases up to 400 °C or when the duration gets significantly
The taper structure is then laminated on top of the diaphragms
longer, the taper color becomes brown. Besides, in Figure 2. (c),
with SU-8 in its SUEX form which is a dry film
the contrast of colors in the maintaining structures shows that the
manufactured [22]. The final samples are vertical conical
taper starts detaching itself from the bottom glass substrate.
shape tapers who have a thickness of 50 µm. The wafer is then
Fig. 3. shows taper SEM images before and after heating at
diced into 8.4 mm x 4.2 mm squares. Each of these squares
400 °C for 60 min. The structure boundary bent slightly owing to
contains the testing taper whose diaphragm and bottom
the heating. The maintaining arms are thinner than the original
diameter is 32 µm and 30 µm respectively.
ones.
The heating process is carried out in a stable clean room
environment where the room temperature remains 20 °C
during the experiment and hygrometry is regulated around
50%. The substrate side is placed on a hot plate with the
polymer side up and on the center of the hot plate surface,
ensuring that the samples are uniformly heated. After the
thermal heating procedures, the samples are preserved in room Fig. 2. Taper optical microscope photography: (a) Before
temperature conditions in which the characterization of the heating; (b) at 300 °C for 6 min; (c) at 400 °C for 60 min.
test taper is performed.
Optical microscope photography and scanning-electron-
microscope (SEM) images are taken for each taper under test
before and after heating process in order to control the
variation in the taper geometry shape and surface state.
In addition, precise optical coupling efficiency is measured
for each sample by exploiting the setup bench presented in
Fig. 1. Samples are put on top of a power meter sensor. An
850 nm VCSEL fiber coupled laser is connected to a 25 m
long multimode optical fiber which is cleaved on one of its Fig. 3. Taper SEM images: (a) Before heating; (b) at 400 °C
ends. This fiber end is vertically aligned to the taper surface for 60 min.
keeping an air gap of 15 µm. The laser beam is emitted from
the cleaved end of the fiber to the taper. After passing through The coupling efficiency degradation loss (CE loss) is defined
the taper and the diaphragm structure, the laser beam is then as the difference between the maximum coupling efficiency in
collected by the power meter sensor. percentage before and after heating. Table 1 provides the
The reference optical power is measured through a bare experimental coupling efficiency degradation at various
glass region whose position is very close to the test taper. The temperature and time at 850 nm. The experimental results
coupling efficiency is defined as the ratio between the light indicate that as the temperature and the time increase, the CE loss

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is more severe. In addition, taper shows a stable optical
performance below 310 °C for time below 9 min, since the CE
loss is negligible.
TABLE I
THE EXPERIMENTAL RESULT OF CE LOSS (±2%) AT 850 NM.
These data are plotted by a curve of experimental CE loss as
a function of time in Fig. 4. We found that after a certain time,
the CE loss reached a saturation zone while the taper CE
degradation stabilized with time at a fixed temperature.
Moreover, before the saturation zone, the CE loss degradation
fits a linear model as described in equation (1).
𝐶𝐸 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑠 = 𝐴(𝑇) ∗ 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 (1)
Where the time is the duration of exposure to a given
temperature T, and A(T) is the curve slope as a function of the
temperature.
Fig. 4. CE loss experimental result as a function of time at
850 nm
The temperature which is required to reach a given CE loss
degradation after a given time is plotted in Fig. 5. as a function
of the CE loss/time ratio. Extracted from the linear fit of Fig.
4, the CE loss to time ratio is replaced with slope the A(T)
which is presented with a star, for the purpose of investigating
temperature dependence on CE loss and time duration. The
curve shown with a circle is the raw measurement value.
The resulting point distribution appears to be following a
3
logarithmic model as given in equation (2).
𝐶𝐸 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑠
𝑇(𝑡) = 𝑇𝑐 + 𝑇𝛼 ln ( ) (2)
𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒
Where 𝑇𝑐 and 𝑇𝛼 refer to constants.
Fig. 5. The limit temperature as a function of the CE
loss / time ratio with raw measured data (circles); mean value
of CE loss / time taken from the A slope value (stars); and
logarithmic model fit (plain line).
Finally, fitting the plotted data, the values of the constants
from Eq. (2) are given in table II for the SU-8 SUEX material
used in this paper.
TABLE II
THE CONSTANTS VALUE FOR SU-8 SUEX.
IV. DISCUSSION
The CE loss is caused by the absorption effect in SU-8. As
the temperature increases, thermal degradation has a vital
effect on the wavelength absorption. It is shown that CE loss
as a function of time follows a linear model. Based on this
observation, the temperature as a function of CE loss/Time is
found to be a logarithmic function.
From Eq. (2) logarithm model, it is then possible to predict
the limit temperature that can withstand the polymer tapers up
to given limit coupling efficiency degradation such as 0.1 dB
and 0.5 dB CE loss in logarithmic scale that is presented in
Fig.6. This shows a maximum time of 9 min to operate a
process with the SU-8 taper at 300 °C before degrading its
performance by 0.1 dB. At 350 °C, if the process duration is
up to 1 min and 30 s, there is an insignificant impact on the
optical transmission of SU-8.

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Fig. 6. The limit temperature as a function of time at 0.1 dB
and 0.5 dB CE loss degradation logarithmic scale.
V. CONCLUSION AND PERSPECTIVE
The degradation of SU-8 ultra-low-loss optical coupling
structures with temperature has been studied within the range
of 280 °C – 400 °C with duration up to 2 hours. The test
samples are based on tapered vertical waveguides deposited
on a patterned glass substrate and metallic diaphragms.
Through a precise experimental plan, the degradation of the
optical absorption of the polymer taper has been measured and
modeled. A linear model is found to properly fit the coupling
efficiency degradation loss as a function of time at given
temperature. With the objective to evaluate the limit
temperature at a fixed threshold on the coupling efficiency
degradation loss, a logarithmic model is extracted and fitted
by experimental data to correlate the temperature as a function
of the coupling efficiency loss to time ratio. It gives the
possibility to predict the threshold for SUEX film for the first
time in both coupling efficiency and time of exposure to the
high temperature. It is therefore of primary importance to
evaluate the maximum temperature for subsequent process
after the fabrication of the taper. It demonstrates that these
polymer low-loss optical couplers can withstand most of the
high temperature process, including reflow soldering and other
anti-reflection-coating processes. It can withstand 300 °C for
up to 9 min, and 350 °C for up to 1 minute and 30 seconds,
with less than 0.1 dB optical degradation.
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