2017/11/15 by David J. Mandia, Mandia, David J.
Engineering · Materials Science · #Advanced Fiber Optic Sensors #Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Optical Coatings and Gratings #Optics (physics.optics) #Semiconductor Lasers and Optical Devices
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1711.10313
openalex publication_date 2017/11/15 · openalex created_date 2022/08/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The present work addressed in this thesis introduces, for the first time, the use of tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) sensors for accurate, real-time, and in-situ characterization of CVD and ALD processes for noble metals, but with a particular focus on gold due to its desirable optical and plasmonic properties. Through the use of orthogonally-polarized transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) resonance modes imposed by a boundary condition at the cladding-metal interface of the optical fiber, polarization-dependent resonances excited by the TFBG are easily decoupled. It was found that for ultrathin thicknesses of gold films from CVD (~6-65 nm), the anisotropic property of these films made it non-trivial to characterize their effective optical properties such as the real component of the permittivity. Nevertheless, the TFBG introduces a new sensing platform to the ALD and CVD community for extremely sensitive in-situ process monitoring. We later also demonstrate thin film growth at low (<10 cycle) numbers for the well-known Al2O3 thermal ALD process, as well as the plasma-enhanced gold ALD process. Finally, the use of ALD-grown gold coatings has been employed for the development of a plasmonic TFBG-based sensor with ultimate refractometric sensitivity (~550 nm/RIU).