Photonic Crystal Cavities in Cubic (3C) Silicon Carbide

Silicon carbide (SiC) combines many of the outstanding material properties of other well-known optical and quantum optical materials, including strong optical nonlinearity, high Young's modulus, and a host of optically-active crystalline defects, in a single CMOS-compatible platform. For many applications in classical and quantum information processing, the material properties of the cubic silicon carbide polytype (3C-SiC) in particular are advantageous. We therefore present the design, fabrication, and characterization of high quality factor and small mode volume planar photonic crystal cavities in cubic 3C-SiC thin films (200 nm). We demonstrate cavity resonances across the infrared telecommunications band, with wavelengths from 1.25 - 1.6 $\mu $m. Finally, we highlight our progress developing higher Q/V nanobeam cavities, as well as extending this optical cavity platform towards integration with SiC color centers.