High reflectivity gratings on silicon-on-insulator waveguide facets

We demonstrate by numerical simulations and experiments that highly reflective (HR) facets can be formed on silicon waveguides with high reflectivity diffraction gratings. We use an HR grating with a plane wave reflectivity exceeding 99.99%, as calculated by rigorous coupled wave analysis. Experimentally, we demonstrate the HR effect for silicon-on-insulator waveguide facets patterned lithographically with grating structures. Due to a strong mode size dependence, the maximum facet reflectivity for 1.5 microm thick waveguide is 77%, but finite difference time-domain simulations show that modal reflectivies larger than 90% can be achieved for silicon waveguides with thicknesses of 4 microm or more.