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Ultra-low loss photonic integrated circuit with membrane-type photonic crystal waveguides

Sharee J. McNab, Nikolaj Moll, and Yurii A. Vlasov

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

We report the design and testing of an SOI-based photonic integrated circuit containing two-dimensional membrane-type photonic crystal waveguides. The circuit comprises spot-size converters to efficiently couple light from a fiber into single-mode strip waveguides and buttcouplers to couple from strip waveguides to photonic crystal waveguides. Each optical interface was optimized to minimize back-reflections and reduce the Fabry-Perot noise. The transmission characteristics of each component are measured and record low propagation losses in photonic crystal waveguides of 24dB/cm are reported. The combination of an efficient two-stage coupling scheme and utilization of ultra-long (up to 2mm) photonic crystal waveguides reduces the uncertainty in determining the loss figure to 3dB/cm.

©2003 Optical Society of America

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Figures (6)
Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. (a). Schematic of the photonic IC. It consists of a fiber-to-strip waveguide (F-S) spot-size converter and strip-to-photonic crystal (S-PhC) waveguide butt-coupler making up the input and output to the photonic crystal waveguide. (b). Reference optical circuit with 450nm wide strip waveguide and central section with 700nm wide waveguide coupled via adiabatic tapers (same as S-PhC coupler as in 1a). (c). Schematic of the F-S spot-size converter optimized for the PhC-based circuit.

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Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. SEM micrographs of a) PhC membrane waveguide with strip access waveguide. b) sidewall profile showing ~90 angle sidewalls. c) F-S coupler, end of the silicon taper tip is visible overlaid by thick (3µm in this case) polymer waveguide.

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Fig. 3.
Fig. 3. Intensity of light scattered vertically from the reference optical circuit of Fig.1(b) with a 450nm wide strip waveguide for TE polarized light. Blue curve corresponds to the wavelength of 1550nm and black to 1330nm. Inset: Image of the vertically scattered light acquired by the IR camera. Several of such images were averaged to produce the traces in the main figure.

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Fig. 4.
Fig. 4. Fiber-to-fiber transmission through the reference optical circuit of Fig.1(b) with a 450nm wide strip waveguide. Inset shows insertion loss due to horizontal (X-axis) and vertical (Y-axis) misalignment.

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Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. Top: Transmission spectra for TE polarization in photonic IC with different PhC waveguide lengths. Spectral resolution is 5nm. Bottom: Photonic band diagram of the PhC waveguide for TE-like (even) modes. Vertical dashed line shows the light-line cutoff.

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Fig. 6.
Fig. 6. Transmission spectra for TE polarization of photonic IC with different PhC waveguide lengths. Spectra are normalized on transmission through the reference optical circuit of Fig.1(b) with a 450nm wide strip waveguide. The spectral resolution is 0.5nm. Inset: Attenuation at 1505nm for different length of the PhC waveguides.

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Tables (1)

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Table 1. Summary of characterization of photonic IC components for TE polarization

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Equations (2)

Equations on this page are rendered with MathJax. Learn more.

P n = − α PhC l n − α strip ( L − l n ) − b
α PhC = P 2 − P 1 l 1 − l 2 + α strip
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