Marcell Kristof Kiss
Diamond is an exceptional material - hard, stiff, transparent, which makes it ideal for the fabrication
of optical and mechanical systems that take advantage of these properties. Diamond
is not only "better", but it offers the possibility of integrating bright colour centres. These
optically active defects can be exploited for a variety of applications, including the study of
fundamental science, magnetometry, biosensing and new types of lasers.
Despite the attractive properties of diamond for optics, no standard platform exists to create
photonic circuits and devices. This thesis shows the realisation of a diamond-on-insulator
photonics platform, that aims to combine the versatility of the silicon-on-insulator photonics
with the capability of performing diamond science in single crystal guided-wave devices. The
diamond-on-insulator substrate is achieved via ion implantation-based cut of a single crystal
membrane and bonding of the membrane to an insulator layer. This approach provides a
monolithic fabrication process that scales to commercial exploitation, bringing convenient
access to the study of diamond light-matter interactions without requiring custom substrate
fabrication. Furthermore, the possibility of releasing the diamond devices adds access to
freestanding structures, opening the way to diamond micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems
and optomechanics.
Diamond also makes an excellent microoptics substrate, due to its high laser damage threshold,
transparency and high refractive index, which is an attractive combination for high-power,
compact optical systems operating in the UV, visible and near-infrared. Different diamond
etching techniques are developed and investigated in this thesis, that enable the realisation
of unique features. These techniques are employed to create diamond diffractive microoptical
components, which are then characterised, showing high-quality surfaces that closely
match the designed features, indicating reliable fabrication and resulting in excellent optical
performance. These devices have applications in high power beamsplitters, beam shapers
and compact spectrometers.
EPFL2019
