Fabricating photonic devices from bulk substrate

Abstract

A fabrication process for fabricating, from a bulk substrate material, devices configured to interface with light is described. Sequential directionally-dependent etching process steps may be used to form interior features of a given device prior to undercutting remaining portions of the bulk substrate material in order to locally isolate the formed device from the remaining portions of the bulk substrate material. Layers of conformally deposited material may be used to protect the interior features from being unintentionally etched during said undercutting step(s). Such devices fabricated from bulk substrate material may be used in photonics, for example, in which interior features may be patterned into a bulk substrate material rather than into a thin film in order to preserve higher-quality material properties (e.g., for diamond). Collectively, interior features of such a photonics device may be configured to act as a photonic cavity to store and/or capture light with improved performance.

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