Design and Manufacture of Polarization-Independent 3D SOI Vertical Optical Coupler

An optical coupler is a key input/output (I/O) device in a photonic integrated circuit (PIC), which plays the role of light-source import and modulated light output. In this research, a vertical optical coupler consisting of a concave mirror and a half-cone edge taper was designed. We optimized the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shengtao Yu, Xiaoyu Li, Chengqun Gui
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-06-01
Series:Micromachines
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/14/6/1268
Description
Summary:An optical coupler is a key input/output (I/O) device in a photonic integrated circuit (PIC), which plays the role of light-source import and modulated light output. In this research, a vertical optical coupler consisting of a concave mirror and a half-cone edge taper was designed. We optimized the structure of mirror curvature and taper through finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) and ZEMAX simulation to achieve mode matching between SMF (single-mode fiber) and the optical coupler. The device was fabricated via laser-direct-writing 3D lithography, dry etching and deposition on a 3.5 µm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. The test results show that the overall loss of the coupler and its connected waveguide at 1550 nm was 1.11 dB in transverse-electric (TE) mode and 2.25 dB in transverse-magnetic (TM) mode.
ISSN:2072-666X