Passive alignment of a semiconductor laser to optical fibre utilising a silicon micro-bench

The packaging of semiconductor laser chips has always presented a range of technical problems due to the sub-micron tolerances required to obtain optimum coupling of the small laser spot size to the larger spot size of a single mode fibre. This report details the combination of a precision cleaved large spot laser and a silicon micromachined optical bench to achieve high coupling efficiencies by purely passive alignment. This combination of technologies will offer a viable route to obtaining the very low cost packaged devices required for future fibre systems.