Polarization and wavelength agnostic nanophotonic beam splitter
David González‐AndradeChristian LafforgueElena Durán‐ValdeiglesiasXavier Le RouxMathias BercianoÉric CassanDelphine Marris‐MoriniAitor V. VelascoPavel ChebenLaurent VivienCarlos Alonso‐Ramos
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High-performance optical beam splitters are of fundamental importance for the development of advanced silicon photonics integrated circuits. However, due to the high refractive index contrast of the silicon-on-insulator platform, state of the art Si splitters are hampered by trade-offs in bandwidth, polarization dependence and sensitivity to fabrication errors. Here, we present a new strategy that exploits modal engineering in slotted waveguides to overcome these limitations, enabling ultra-wideband polarization-insensitive optical power splitters, with relaxed fabrication tolerances. The proposed splitter relies on a single-mode slot waveguide which is transformed into two strip waveguides by a symmetric taper, yielding equal power splitting. Based on this concept, we experimentally demonstrate -3$\pm$0.5 dB polarization-independent transmission in an unprecedented 390 nm bandwidth (1260 - 1650 nm), even in the presence of waveguide width deviations as large as $\pm$25 nm.Keywords:
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Light routing and manipulation are important aspects of integrated optics. They essentially rely on beam splitters which are at the heart of interferometric setups and active routing. The most common implementations of beam splitters suffer either from strong dispersive response (directional couplers) or tight fabrication tolerances (multimode interference couplers). In this paper we fabricate a robust and simple broadband integrated beam splitter based on lithium niobate with a splitting ratio achromatic over more than 130 nm. Our architecture is based on spatial adiabatic passage, a technique originally used to transfer entirely an optical beam from a waveguide to another one that has been shown to be remarkably robust against fabrication imperfections and wavelength dispersion. Our device shows a splitting ratio of 0.52±0.03 and 0.48±0.03 from 1500 nm up to 1630 nm. Furthermore, we show that suitable design enables the splitting in output beams with relative phase 0 or π. Thanks to their independence to material dispersion, these devices represent simple, elementary components to create achromatic and versatile photonic circuits.
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Subwavelength metamaterials exhibit a strong anisotropy that can be leveraged to implement high-performance polarization handling devices in silicon-on-insulator. Whereas these devices benefit from single-etch step fabrication, many of them require small feature sizes or specialized cladding materials. The anisotropic response of subwavelength metamaterials can be further engineered by tilting its constituent elements away from the optical axis, providing an additional degree of freedom in the design. In this work, we demonstrate this feature through the design, fabrication and experimental characterization of a robust multimode interference polarization beam splitter based on tilted subwavelength gratings. A 110-nm minimum feature size and a standard silicon dioxide cladding are maintained. The resulting device exhibits insertion loss as low as 1 dB, an extinction ratio better than 13 dB in a 120-nm bandwidth, and robust tolerances to fabrication deviations.
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Utilizing the inverse design engineering method of topology optimization, we have realized high-performing all-silicon ultra-compact polarization beam splitters. We show that the device footprint of the polarization beam splitter can be as compact as ~2 μm2 while performing experimentally with a polarization splitting loss lower than ~0.82 dB and an extinction ratio larger than ~15 dB in the C-band. We investigate the device performance as a function of the device length and find a lower length above which the performance only increases incrementally. Imposing a minimum feature size constraint in the optimization is shown to affect the performance negatively and reveals the necessity for light to scatter on a sub-wavelength scale to obtain functionalities in compact photonic devices.
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The power imbalance between different waveguide outputs is compensated by manipulating the dispersion of the guided propagation in the multimode interference (MMI) region. This is attainable using a tapered region at the beginning of the MMI region that has been verified through simulation and experiment. From this, the fabrication tolerance for the diameters of holes in a tapered 1×3 photonic crystal waveguide (PhCW) splitter is relaxed up to a range of at least 27 nm. The output power is well-balanced to within 1 dB. The effective bandwidth of the splitters shifts only around 13 nm, for a reduction of 10 nm in the diameter of the PhCW holes. The optimized component is an outstanding ultracompact 1×3 splitter for the photonic integrated circuit (PIC).
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In this paper, we have proposed a novel planar waveguide optical-power-splitter design with a large number of splitting channels. The design uses the wavefront lateral interference in light propagation in a slab waveguide, with its core properly adjusted in different areas for achieving different effective indices for the required phase delays. Therefore, the whole structure is equivalent to a nonblocking all-pass filter, hence, suffers a very small insertion loss. Another unique advantage of this structure lies in its weak length dependence on the number of splitting channels; although its lateral size has to be scaled up as the channel number increases, as opposed to conventional splitters with both of its length and lateral size scaled up with increasing channel numbers. Our numerical simulation results show that, for a 1-to-256 channel splitter within a working wavelength band from 1530 to 1570 nm, the insertion loss is below 1.3 dB. The channel nonuniformity is less than 5 dB within the same band. The required size is within 2.5 mm by 10 mm on the silicon-on-insulator platform. The proposed structure can readily be extended to other material platforms, such as the silica-based planar lightwave circuit or semiconductors. Its fabrication process is fully compatible with standard clean-room technologies, such as photolithography and etching, without any complicated and/or costly approach involved.
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Polarization control of light waves is an important technique in optical communication and signal processing. On-chip polarization rotation from the fundamental transverse-electric (TE00) mode to the fundamental transverse-magnetic (TM00) mode is usually difficult because of their large effective refractive index difference. Here, we demonstrate an on-chip wideband polarization rotator designed with a genetic algorithm to convert the TE00 mode into the TM00 mode within a footprint of 0.96 μm ×4.2 μm. In simulation, the optimized structure achieves polarization rotation with a minimum conversion loss of 0.7 dB and the 1-dB bandwidth of 157 nm. Experimentally, our fabricated devices have demonstrated the expected polarization rotation with a conversion loss of ∼2.5 dB in the measured wavelength range of 1440-1580 nm, where the smallest value reaches ∼2 dB. The devices can serve as a generic approach and standard module for controlling light polarization in integrated photonic circuitry.
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In recent years, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology has focused remarkable attention due to its high index contrast, which enables a high confinement of the propagating waveguide mode and a great integration density. However, the sub-micron waveguide dimensions imply a large difference between the transverse electric (TE) and the transverse magnetic (TM) modes, giving rise to a strong birefringence. The extremely wide range of applicability of this platform increases the interest in the enhancement of the current polarization beam splitters (PBS) performance. Different approaches such as Mach-Zehnder interferometry based PBSs [1], Bragg grating waveguides [2], directional couplers [3], photonic crystals [4], slotted [5] and plasmonic [6] waveguides or multimode interference couplers (MMI) [7] have been proposed with this purpose. Nevertheless, these schemes present different drawbacks like large footprints, experimental set-up limitations, limited bandwidths, efficiency restrictions, tight fabrication tolerances or complex fabrication techniques. In this work, the novel PBS proposed is a MMI based on sub-wavelength grating (SWG) technology. SWGs are periodic structures of alternating materials, most commonly silicon and silicon dioxide, with a pitch much smaller than the wavelength of the propagating light, hence suppressing diffractive effects. These widely used structures can be considered as a homogeneous medium with an equivalent refractive index which is the average between the indices of both materials. By adjusting their geometric parameters, particularly the duty cycle, the equivalent index can be engineered opening the way to enhanced ultra-compact devices. SWGs have recently been demonstrated to be especially interesting in MMI couplers providing ultra-broadband bandwidths and notably efficiencies [8]. Therefore, the present design not only benefits from the inherently low losses of MMI devices, but also from the index engineering of subwavelength structures. Furthermore, the high degree of inherent birefringence of these structures provides our MMI with an anisotropic character, which can be advantageously engineered by tilting the SWG structures in the multimode region. The SWG segments in the multimode region are tilted with respect to the optical axis of the device. Progressively-tilted input and output inverse tapers are also implemented, improving coupling efficiency and reducing losses. By selectively tuning the propagation constants of each polarization, large differences in their Talbot self-imaging length can be implemented. As a result, the beat length for the TE and TM polarizations are highly disparate, enabling a compact polarization splitter configuration. With this technique, a more efficient device is obtained with a reduced footprint, low insertion losses and extinction ratios, and broad bandwidth. The polarization splitter implemented on SOI platform allows a one-step and simple fabrication process.
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Metasurface-based beam splitters with high efficiency, large split angle, wide bandwidth and easy fabrication are highly desirable and still in pursuit. In this paper, we propose a heuristic scheme for designing an ultra-broadband high-efficiency power beam splitter based on a homogeneous metasurface. The conversion efficiency and total transmission intensity of the power splitter stays higher than 95% and 0.66 within the wavelength region from 604 nm to 738 nm, respectively. Particularly, the conversion efficiency can maintain greater than 99% in 58 nm bandwidth. The angle between two split beams can reach a maximum of 157.82° at the wavelength of 738 nm. In addition to simplified design and easy fabrication, the proposed power beam splitter possesses high robustness as well. We expect that our design can pave a new way for realizing high-performance metasurface-based beam splitters.
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We designed and demonstrated TE-mode arbitrary power splitters based on adiabatic mode evolution.The power splitters are designed with a footprint of smaller than 12 × 2.9 µm 2 , fabricated on a 400-nm silicon-on-insulator platform, requiring only a single etch step.The optimization process and the conditions for arbitrary-power splitting are performed using three-dimensional-FDTD simulations.We prove this concept through the fabrication of asymmetrical adiabatic evolution-based power splitters with splitting ratios of 50:50, 60:40, and 70:30.The fabricated devices are shown to agree closely with simulation results.Broadband operation with low insertion loss of 0.11-0.6dB is demonstrated across the 3.66-3.89µm wavelength range (230 nm).This component has applications in a multitude of areas such as spectroscopic optical sensing and optical phased arrays photonic integrated circuits etc.
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We present the first unique design of a polarization-independent dual-wavelength splitter for wavelengths around 1.3 μ m and 1.55 μ m that is potentially of great interest to passive optical network (PON) applications. The filter design is simple compared with the other architectures and is based on ridge-type lateral directional couplers that can be readily integrated with other planar waveguide devices. Two design examples, based on InP/InGaAsP and Si/SiGe waveguides, are given. This polarization-independent wavelength splitting is achieved by exploiting the polarization dependence of the waveguides to produce coupling lengths that are sensitive to polarization and wavelength. We show that, to split the wavelengths without splitting the polarizations, the coupling lengths must be sufficiently different for TE and TM and for the different wavelengths in order to give the correct required ratios between the TE and TM coupling lengths for the two wavelengths of interest. We also show that the same approach can be applied to the design of a polarization splitter. The crosstalk, optical bandwidth, and fabrication sensitivity for the wavelength filter are evaluated.
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