Straight and Curved Silica Nano-Ridges Connections Based on Fluidic Approach for Hybrid Integrated Photonics

We report a practical and novel approach based on reproducible fluidic mechanisms coupled with silica nano-particles for the development of nano-optical-connections directly on organic integrated photonic chips. Silica nano-ridge waveguides have been shaped with various widths ranging between 50 nm and 200 nm and with about one hundred micrometers length. An effective nano-photonic coupling mechanism has been demonstrated and a sub-wavelength propagation regime obtained between four perpendicular organic rib tapers and two parallel waveguides with respectively curved and straight silica nano-ridges configurations. The specific silica nano-ridge-waveguides structures show off optical propagation losses ranging between 37 and 68 dB/mm at visible and infra-red wavelengths respectively. Such flexible devices offer a versatile fabrication process and present great potential regarding future applications for shaping nano-connections and integrating high-density networks. Indeed originally segmented optical circuits tapers, lines, plots or any pre-formed photonics structures could thus be combined.