Stratified waveguide grating coupler for normal fiber incidence

We propose a new stratified waveguide grating coupler (SWGC) to couple light from a fiber at normal incidence into a planar waveguide. SWGCs are designed to operate in the strong coupling regime without intermediate optics between the fiber and the waveguide. Two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulation in conjunction with microgenetic algorithm optimization shows that approximately 72% coupling efficiency is possible for fiber (core size of 8.3 microm and delta=0.36%) to slab waveguide (1.2-microm core and delta=3.1%) coupling. We show that the phase-matching and Bragg conditions are simultaneously satisfied through the fundamental leaky mode.     

Efficient input and output fiber coupling to a photonic crystal waveguide

The efficiency of evanescent coupling between a silica optical fiber taper and a silicon photonic crystal waveguide is studied. A high-reflectivity mirror on the end of the photonic crystal waveguide is used to recollect, in the backward-propagating fiber mode, the optical power that is initially coupled into the photonic crystal waveguide. An outcoupled power in the backward-propagating fiber mode of 88% of the input power is measured, corresponding to a lower bound on the coupler efficiency of 94%.     

四端口光纤声光器件的耦合模理论

简述了光纤的声致折变机制,在复合光波导理论基础上讨论了光纤零耦合器与常规光纤耦合器的本质区别,指出零耦合器实质上是一段可以选择激励的双模光纤。从耦合模理论出发,求解了零耦合器中声致模耦合渐进方程组,给出了四端口光纤声光器件功率耦合的完整解析表达式,阐明了器件输出光的频移特性,解释了器件在声光谐振时具有的倍频声光调制、可调光移频、光滤波、光分束、光开关等功能。最后报道了器件作为可调光分束器或光开关的研究实例。     

Fiber-to-waveguide coupler based on the parabolic reflector

We present a fiber-to-waveguide coupling structure, the so-called vertical J coupler, based on the parabolic reflector. The device addresses the multiple objectives of high coupling efficiency, large bandwidth operation, polarization insensitivity, and compact footprint. The optical mode emanating from a fiber arranged normal to the plane of the substrate is incident underneath the parabolic reflector, turned through 90 degrees and focused into a dielectric waveguide. The viability of the coupler is demonstrated by finite-difference time-domain electromagnetic simulation as well as preliminary fabrication and optical testing of the device.     

星形光波导耦合器的耦合特性分析

根据TE0模光波导的本征场分布、瑞利索末菲标量衍射积分公式和激励源与光波导耦合的匹配效率公式,给出光波导端面衍射和耦合的归一化发射系数和接收系数计算公式,推导出光波导端面非接触耦合的耦合效率计算公式。光波导模场分布采用高斯函数近似表达,给出简洁的计算光波导端面非接触耦合的耦合效率函数表达式。最后,基于星形光波导耦合器结构参量的特点,将累加运算采用积分运算近似表达,给出星形光波导耦合器接收光波导总的接收效率与耦合器基本参量的关系,阐明了星形光波导耦合器的耦合特性。     

Fiber coupler for generating orbital angular momentum modes

We propose a fiber coupler consisting of a central ring and four external cores to generate up to ten orbital angular momentum (OAM) modes. Four coherent input lights are launched into the external cores and then coupled into the central ring waveguide to generate OAM modes. By changing the size of the external cores, one can selectively excite a high-order OAM mode. The quality of the generated OAM modes can be enhanced by adjusting the polarization state and the phase of input lights. We show the generation of OAM modes with odd charge numbers of -9 to +9 (i.e., 10 modes totally) with mode purity of >99% using <2?mm long fiber. This fiber coupler design can be extended to enable all-fiber spatial-mode (de)multiplexing.     

An efficient directional coupling from dielectric waveguide to hybrid long-range plasmonic waveguide on a silicon platform

The silicon-based three-dimensional hybrid long-range plasmonic waveguide not only supports long-range propagation distance (~mm) but also has an ultra-small modal area (~10^?2 μm²) at 1.55 μm. Here, we propose a directional coupler for effective coupling from a dielectric slab-waveguide to the hybrid plasmonic waveguide on a silicon platform. Our simulation results show that the coupler is able to excite hybrid long-range plasmonic mode with short coupling length, low insertion loss, and high extinction ratio. With the arm separation of 0.3 μm, the coupling length can be made 5.2 % of the propagation length of the hybrid plasmonic waveguide, while the insertion loss and extinction ratio are ?0.12 and 22.4 dB, respectively. This coupler offers the potential applications in signal routing between the hybrid long-range plasmonic waveguide and dielectric waveguide in the photonic integrated circuits.     

一种新型的光纤锥形耦合器

提出了一种光纤波导折射率渐变的新型锥形（Taper）耦合器件，其原理是基于光纤中Ge缺陷在紫外光照射下而产生的光致折射率的变化。利用光纤在高压、低温下渗氢技术使单模光纤的光致折射率变化△n达6×10-3数量级；通过控制曝光条件就可以在光纤中产生一定规律的锥形结构，使单模光纤的模场半径由4．8μm缩小到3．2μm。由耦合波理论分析表明该器件具有较好的基模传输特性。     

High-purity transmission of a slow light odd mode in a photonic crystal waveguide

We demonstrate a novel scheme to control the excitation symmetry for an odd mode in a photonic crystal waveguide and investigate the spectral signature of this slow light mode. An odd-mode Mach-Zehnder coupler is introduced to transform mode symmetry and excite a high-purity odd mode with 20?dB signal contrast over the background. Assisted by a mixed-mode Mach-Zehnder coupler, slow light mode beating can be observed and is utilized to determine the group index of this odd mode. With slow light enhancement, this odd mode can help enable novel miniaturized devices such as one-way waveguides.     

Design for broadband high-efficiency grating couplers

In this Letter, we propose general optimization methods to design broadband high-efficiency grating couplers for planar waveguides. We attribute the coupling bandwidth to the mismatch of effective indices between the diffracted beam and the actual grating structure around the operation wavelength for fiber to waveguide excitation. The coupling bandwidth formula is deduced. A simple parameter-separate optimization procedure is proposed for general layered grating couplers for high coupling efficiency. Using our principle, we optimized a grating coupler for a horizontal slot waveguide operating at wavelength 1.55 μm for TM polarization. The grating coupler has 1 dB bandwidth of 60 nm and coupling efficiency of 65% with incident light from single-mode optical fiber (SMF) at 8°.     

GaAs非对称X结波导混合耦合器的研究

本文报道了ＧａＡｓ非对称Ｘ结波导耦合器的工作原理。该器件制作在ｎ＾－／ｎ＾＋ＧａＡｓ外延材料上。文中采用有效折射率法分析了这个耦合器的分离角、波导脊高及其两个非对称波导传播常数差之间的关系。器件在λ＝１．１５μｍ下测量，得到了小于－２．９ｄＢ的分光性能和小于－２０ｄＢ的串音比。     

Fiber grating couplers for silicon nanophotonic circuits: Design modeling methodology and fabrication tolerances

Silicon nanophotonic circuits can exhibit a very high level of functional integration due to the very small cross sections of the silicon waveguides. However, to be implemented in data transmission networks, such circuits still must be interfaced with optical fibers having much larger dimensions. Due to this mismatch in size, a coupling structure is required in order to minimize the coupling loss. Diffraction grating coupler structures are one of the best candidates to perform this mode size conversion with good performances. However, they are also very sensitive to fabrication tolerances that may require an adaptation of the coupling conditions. In this paper, we present an iterative numerical method to optimize the design of a grating coupler by analyzing the out coupled beam from the waveguide towards the fiber. Using this method we show in details the sensitivity of the grating couplers to the principal fabrication variabilities in order to maximize the robustness of the design. A grating with 53% fiber to waveguide coupling efficiency is designed. Considering the dispersion of the modern CMOS fabrication processing, it appears that the optimal fiber coupling ratio remains rather constant but the optimal coupling angle at a given wavelength may vary by as much as ±10°.     

Radiation pattern of an end-fire optical waveguide coupler

A section of an optical waveguide having thickness less than the mode cutoff value adjoining a section having thickness greater than this value serves as an input-output optical waveguide coupler. Expressions for the radiation pattern of this coupler, the angle at which the maximum occurs, and the angular beam width are derived. Calculations of these quantities as a function of coupler thickness for several waveguide-substrate structures applicable at λ = 10.6 μm are presented. Radiation patterns with small angular widths that result in high coupler efficiencies are found to occur when the waveguide and substrate refractive indices are nearly equal.     

Acrylic-based asymmetric and variable coupling ratio Y-branch plastic optical fiber coupler

Acrylic-based asymmetric and variable couplers have been developed using a single structured Y-branch design with a high-index-contrast waveguide taper and a void structure for fiber attenuation using the lateral displacement of two fibers. Device fabrication is performed by producing the device structure on an acrylic block using a computer numerical control (CNC) machine tool. The fabricated device has an excess loss of 5.85 dB, while the coupling ratios are 56.86 and 43.14% when the device is operated as a 3 dB coupler. In the asymmetric coupler mode, the coupling ratio ranges from 44.84 to 8.01% for port 1 and 55.16 to 91.99% for port 2. The excess loss of this device varies from 5.42 to 7.64 dB. In the variable coupler mode, the coupling ratio ranges from 10.09 to 32.88% for port 1 and from 89.91 to 67.12% for port 2. The excess loss of the device varies from 5.85 to 8.49 dB.     

An ultracompact hybrid plasmonic waveguide polarization beam splitter

We propose an ultracompact polarization beam splitter based on an asymmetric directional coupler, which comprises of a horizontally slotted waveguide and a hybrid plasmonic waveguide. The splitter is designed such that there is a large difference between the effective indices of the TE-polarized modes for the two waveguides, while the effective index difference between the TM-polarized modes are quite small in a wide wavelength range. Numerical results demonstrate that the proposed splitter with a short device length of 5 μm shows extinction ratios as low as ?20 dB with bandwidths as great as 100 nm.     

Design and analysis of a vertical directional coupler between a three-dimensional plasmonic slot waveguide and a silicon waveguide

The design of a vertical directional coupler between a three-dimensional plasmonic slot waveguide and a silicon waveguide is theoretically investigated in detail. It consists of two steps: the design of isolated plasmonic slot waveguide and silicon waveguide and the determination of the gap between the two waveguides and the length of a coupling region. The designed structure transfers 70.8% of the power carried by the silicon waveguide mode to the plasmonic slot waveguide mode when the gap is 150 nm and the coupling length is 2.14 μm. The wavelength dependence of our vertical directional coupler is also studied. The analysis shows that the amount of the transferred power changes slightly over a very wide wavelength range between 1.40 μm and 1.61 μm. Moreover, if we employ the fabrication technology for silicon photonics, it is quite tolerant to the variation of the length of its coupling section. Finally, the vertical directional coupler is considered for a polarizer.     

一种硅基SiO2波导耦合器的设计与分析

波导耦合器是组成光纤传感系统和光纤通信系统光收发组件及模块的重要元器件,是实现光收发模块一体化光电集成的基础。给出了一种用光纤陀螺系统的X型四端口波导耦合器的工作原理,采用有效折射率法和BPM(Beam propagation method)法建立了耦合器的数学模型,计算并分析了耦合器尺寸在尽可能小的情况下和在满足单模传输的条件下耦合器的耦合系数、有效耦合长度、分光比以及回波损耗等参数之间的关系,并对其关键技术进行了系统的研究。仿真结果表明,所设计的波导耦合器在低损耗情况下分光比可达到50%∶50%,耦合器全长为33.5mm,输入输出波导间距为410μm,芯层截面积为6μm×6μm。     

Tunable optical add-drop multiplexer based on long-period fiber gratings for coarse wavelength division multiplexing systems

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a voltage-controllable add-drop multiplexer with a tunable coupler based on long-period fiber gratings (LPFGs). The tunable coupler is based on cladding mode coupling between two parallel LPFGs with divided coil heaters, which controls the resonant wavelength positions of the two LPFGs. The wavelength tunability of the tunable coupler is measured to be -0.45 nm/degrees C in the temperature range from 20 to 120 degrees C. The large tuning range of optical signals (approximately 50.54 nm) from 1502.32 to 1552.86 nm, which covers both the short (S) and the conventional (C) bands, is achieved. The channel isolation is as high as approximately 40 dB. It has several advantages, including a broad tuning range of wavelength in both the S- and C-bands, high channel isolation, no backreflection, and so on.     

Compact and efficient coupler to interface hybrid dielectric-loaded plasmonic waveguide with silicon photonic slab waveguide

A coupler is proposed to interface a hybrid dielectric-loaded plasmonic waveguide (HDLPW) with a silicon photonic slab waveguide. The HDLPW is firstly designed and optimized to attain the best tradeoff between the mode confinement and the propagation distance. The designed coupler is inspired from the taper configuration and numerically modeled through finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation. The results demonstrate that a high confinement and low loss of the energy is achieved from a silicon photonic slab waveguide into the dielectric slot of area 50×200 nm² in the HDLPW. The transmission attained through the coupler with a compact size of 400 nm is found to be as high as 80% (1 dB). Further, the planar nature of taper configuration makes the coupler easy to fabricate using the state-of-the-art CMOS facilities. The proposed coupler is useful in enabling the integration between photonic and hybrid plasmonic waveguides and thus realizing on-chip hybrid integrated circuits.