High-efficiency focusing grating coupler with optimized ultra-short taper

A novel high-efficiency focusing non-uniform grating coupler is proposed to couple light into or off silicon photonic chips for large-scale silicon photonic integration. This kind of grating coupler decreases the transition length of the linking taper between the grating and the single-mode waveguide by at least 80%. The radian of the grating lines and the size of the taper are optimized to improve the coupling efficiency. An experimental coupling efficiency of ~ 68% at 1556.24 nm is obtained after optimization and the whole size of the grating is 12 μm × 30 μm, with a very short taper transition of ~15 μm long.     

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.     

Focusing subwavelength grating coupler for mid-infrared suspended membrane waveguide

A mid-infrared (mid-IR)-focusing subwavelength grating (SWG) coupler and suspended membrane waveguide (SMW) on a silicon-on-insulator wafer are studied. For a transverse-electric mode uniform SWG, finite-difference time-domain simulation predicts 44.2% coupling efficiency with 1 dB bandwidth of about 220 nm and backreflection of 0.78% at 2.75 μm. Then the uniform SWG is curved to a focusing SWG using a phase-matching formula. The SMWs are analyzed by the finite element method and fabricated. An Er3+-Pr3+ co-doped mid-IR fiber laser is used for device characterization. The fabricated mid-IR SWG coupler has 24.7% coupling efficiency.     

UV-written long-period waveguide grating coupler for broadband add/drop multiplexing

We demonstrate a UV-written polymer long-period waveguide grating (LPWG) coupler, which offers a bandwidth of ∼20 nm, a maximum coupling efficiency of ∼80% and ∼60% for the TE and TM polarizations, respectively, and a wavelength-tuning range over the (S + C + L)-band (∼140 nm) with a temperature control of ∼25 °C. The LPWG coupler has the potential to be developed into a practical broadband add/drop multiplexer for coarse wavelength-division-multiplexing applications.     

Chirped and curved grating coupler focusing both outgoing beam and guided wave

A new type of a grating coupler is proposed which couples out diverging or converging guided wave into stigmatically focused outgoing beam or vice versa. Theoretical analysis based on the holographic approach is given in some details. Experiments on photoresist gratings support the theory and show their prospective application as beam forming couplers for guided-wave optics.     

High efficiency and broad bandwidth grating coupler between nanophotonic waveguide and fibre

A high efficiency and broad bandwidth grating coupler between a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nanophotonic waveguide and fibre is designed and fabricated. Coupling efficiencies of 46\% and 25\% at a wavelength of 1.55~μ m are achieved by simulation and experiment, respectively. An optical 3~dB bandwidth of 45~nm from 1530~nm to 1575~nm is also obtained in experiment. Numerical calculation shows that a tolerance to fabrication error of 10~nm in etch depth is achievable. The measurement results indicate that the alignment error of ±2~μ m results in less than 1~dB additional coupling loss.     

Apodized fully-etched surface grating coupler using subwavelength structure for standard silicon-on-insulator waveguide

We design and demonstrate the fully-etched apodized grating couplers based on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform using subwavelength structure for both transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) modes operation. The subwavelength grating (SWG) is used to engineer the refractive index using second-order effective medium theory (EMT). The whole designing procedure is given in details, especially a feasible and programmable method is developed to precisely manipulate the coupling strength of each grating cycle. A perfect Gaussian output beam can be synthesized for the TE mode operation, achieving a field overlap up to 98.3% with the Gaussian fiber mode. The simulated peak coupling losses are ?4.63 and ?2.99 dB for the TE mode and the TM mode, respectively, which are comparable with conventional shallowly etched grating couplers, realizing a fabrication simplification without performance penalty. The measured peak coupling loss is ?7.6 dB for the TE mode coupler with a 1 dB bandwidth of 45 nm, and ?6.1 dB for the TM mode coupler with a 1 dB bandwidth of 34 nm.     

High-efficiency optical coupling to planar photodiode using metal reflector loaded waveguide grating coupler

For the realization of optoelectronic integrated circuits, it is required to incident light perpendicularly to a planar Si photodiode. We propose a high-efficient vertical optical coupler using an amorphous Si optical waveguide grating coupler with top reflector, which is transparent at 850 nm wavelength range. The optical waveguide (width of 300 nm $\times $ height of 100 nm) coupler is analyzed by using finite element method. The coupling efficiency of 80 % is calculated at the grating period of 380 nm, the duty ratio of 0.75 and the depth of 35–65 nm with top metal reflector.     

Waveguide grating coupler with a tailored spectral response based on a computer-generated waveguide hologram

We propose a novel method that, for the first time to our knowledge, makes it possible to tailor the spectral response of an input grating coupler. This method is based on the idea of computer-generated waveguide holography. Grating couplers with different spectral responses have been designed and fabricated, and experimental results are presented that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Multi-mode holographic waveguide coupler

A double-exposure thick-holographic-grating waveguide coupler is described in which two waveguide modes can be excited with a single incident beam. Single-grating decouplers are also designed to selectively remove one of the coupled waves.     

Single beam grating coupler with a large grating periodicity

Diffraction of a guided mode by a thin grating is analyzed by a graphical method in the general case where the coupled modes do not propagate in a symmetry plane of the grating. Predictions of the method are confirmed by experiments and single beam coupler configurations are proposed that do not require small grating periodicities.     

High efficiency silicon nitride grating coupler

In this paper, we have designed, fabricated and characterized silicon nitride grating couplers with high efficiency at 1490 nm. The devices are fabricated using deep UV photolithography with resolution requirement of ～500 nm. The grating coupler fabricated yields a peak coupling efficiency of ?5.1 dB. The 1-dB bandwidth of the grating coupler is 60 nm.     

Polarization-independent grating coupler based on silicon-on-insulator

A novel and simple polarization independent grating couplers is designed and analyzed here, in which the TE polarization and the TM polarization light can be simultaneously coupled into a silicon waveguide along the same direction with high coupling efficiency. For the polarization-insensitive grating coupler, the coupling efficiencies of two orthogonal polarizations light are more than 60% at 1550 nm wavelength based on our optimized design parameters including grating period, etching height, filling factor, and so on. For TE mode the maximum efficiency is ～72% with more than 30 nm 1 d B bandwidth, simultaneously, for TM mode the maximum efficiency is 75.15% with 40 nm 1 d B bandwidth. Their corresponding wavelength difference between two polarizations' coupling peaks is demonstrated to be 35 nm. Polarization independent grating coupler designed here can be widely used in optical communication and optical information processing.     

Apodized grating coupler using fully-etched nanostructures

A two-dimensional apodized grating coupler for interfacing between single-mode fiber and photonic circuit is demonstrated in order to bridge the mode gap between the grating coupler and optical fiber. The grating grooves of the grating couplers are realized by columns of fully etched nanostructures, which are utilized to digitally tailor the effective refractive index of each groove in order to obtain the Gaussian-like output diffractive mode and then enhance the coupling efficiency.Compared with that of the uniform grating coupler, the coupling efficiency of the apodized grating coupler is increased by 4.3% and 5.7%, respectively, for the nanoholes and nanorectangles as refractive index tunes layer.     

High-refractive-index measurement with an elastomeric grating coupler

An elastomeric grating coupler fabricated by the replica molding technique is used to measure the modal indices of a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) planar waveguide structure. Because of the van der Waals interaction between the grating mold and the waveguide, the elastomeric stamp makes conformal contact with the waveguide surface, inducing a periodic index perturbation at the contact region. The phase of the incident light is changed to match the guided modes of the waveguide. The modal and bulk indices are obtained by measuring the coupling angles. This technique serves to measure the high refractive index with a precision better than 10(-3) and allows the elastomeric stamp to be removed without damaging the surface of the waveguide.     

Quantum well intermixed waveguide grating

A waveguide grating have been designed suitable for Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing applications in which the refractive index is perturbed by the spatial tailoring of the band gap with fluorine ion implanted quantum well intermixing of the In_0.95Ga_0.05As_0.10P_0.90/InP multi quantum well structure. The gratings have been modeled using coupled mode theory and diffusion equations and Schr?dinger wave equations are used to model quantum well energy while interdiffusion. A four channel waveguide grating from 1,550 to 1,610?nm at a span of 20?nm have been simulated with a channel bandwidth of 13?nm and a cross talk of ?5 to ?10 dB.     

棱镜-漏波导耦合器的理论分析

根据多光束干涉原理,理论上分析了棱镜-漏波导耦合器,且与棱镜-波导耦合器作了比较,给出正确使用这两种耦合器的判据.分析结果表明,在强耦合条件下,棱镜-漏波导耦合器可用于薄膜参数测量和光波导输入-输出耦合;对于弱耦合,本文的结果与Tien和Ulrich的理论一致.     

对称结构光纤光栅耦合器及其应用

光纤光栅耦合器(FGC)具有光纤光栅良好的波长选择特性和光纤耦合器的多端口特点，易于实现全光纤的光波分插复用。光纤光栅耦合器主要有4种结构：基于M Z干涉仪的分离型、基于100％耦合器的非对称型、基于0耦合器的非对称型和基于100％耦合器的对称型。着重介绍对称结构光纤光栅耦合器的结构、工作原理和研究现状。提出了测试方案，并探讨了这种器件在大规模波分复用光纤传感器阵列中的应用。     

光波导脉冲耦合器研究

提出并实验了一种新的波导型脉冲耦合器的构成和动作机理,将光阻断效应表现的光粒子性和分支波导模式耦合表现的光波动性在光波导载体上有机结合起来,用全光学方式实现了输入作用电脉冲与输出同步电脉冲之间的脉冲耦合动力学过程.