Open AccessMode converter based on an inverse taper for multimode silicon nanophotonic integrated circuits
Author(s) -
Daoxin Dai,
Mao Mao
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.23.028376
Subject(s) - multi mode optical fiber , nanophotonics , silicon on insulator , optics , waveguide , electronic circuit , silicon , materials science , optoelectronics , multiplexer , physics , optical fiber , electronic engineering , multiplexing , engineering , quantum mechanics
An inverse taper on silicon is proposed and designed to realize an efficient mode converter available for the connection between multimode silicon nanophotonic integrated circuits and few-mode fibers. The present mode converter has a silicon-on-insulator inverse taper buried in a 3 × 3μm(2) SiN strip waveguide to deal with not only for the fundamental mode but also for the higher-order modes. The designed inverse taper enables the conversion between the six modes (i.e., TE(11), TE(21), TE(31), TE(41), TM(11), TM(12)) in a 1.4 × 0.22μm(2) multimode SOI waveguide and the six modes (like the LP(01), LP(11a), LP(11b) modes in a few-mode fiber) in a 3 × 3μm(2) SiN strip waveguide. The conversion efficiency for any desired mode is higher than 95.6% while any undesired mode excitation ratio is lower than 0.5%. This is helpful to make multimode silicon nanophotonic integrated circuits (e.g., the on-chip mode (de)multiplexers developed well) available to work together with few-mode fibers in the future.