• Photonics Research
  • Vol. 10, Issue 9, 2081 (2022)
Chunhui Yao1, Qixiang Cheng1、*, Günther Roelkens2, and Richard Penty1
Author Affiliations
  • 1Centre for Photonic Systems, Electrical Engineering Division, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0FA, UK
  • 2Department of Information Technology (INTEC), Photonics Research Group, Ghent University-imec, 9052 Ghent, Belgium
  • show less
    DOI: 10.1364/PRJ.465765 Cite this Article Set citation alerts
    Chunhui Yao, Qixiang Cheng, Günther Roelkens, Richard Penty. Bridging the gap between resonance and adiabaticity: a compact and highly tolerant vertical coupling structure[J]. Photonics Research, 2022, 10(9): 2081 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    We present a compact, highly tolerant vertical coupling structure, which can be a generic design that bridges the gap between conventional resonant couplers and adiabatic couplers for heterogeneously integrated devices. We show insights on relaxing the coupler alignment tolerance and provide a detailed design methodology. By the use of a multisegmented inverse taper structure, our design allows a certain proportion of the odd supermode to be excited during the coupling process, which simultaneously facilitates high tolerance and compactness. With a total length of 87 μm, our coupler is almost threefold shorter than the state-of-the-art alignment-tolerant adiabatic couplers and outperforms them by demonstrating a more than 94% coupling efficiency (for <0.3 dB coupling loss) with ±1 μm misalignment tolerance, which, to our best knowledge, is a new record for III-V-on-silicon vertical couplers. Furthermore, our design has high tolerance to fabrication-induced structural deformation and ultrabroad bandwidth. These features make it particularly suitable for building densely integrated III-V-on-silicon photonic circuits with commercially available microtransfer printing assembly tools. The proposed design can be widely adopted in various integration platforms.
    ddz[a1a2]=[iβ1iκiκiβ2][a1a2],

    View in Article

    {κij=k022β(n2nj2)ψiψj*dxdy,κji=k022β(n2ni2)ψjψi*dxdy,κ=κijκji,

    View in Article

    p=1/(1+γ2).

    View in Article

    Chunhui Yao, Qixiang Cheng, Günther Roelkens, Richard Penty. Bridging the gap between resonance and adiabaticity: a compact and highly tolerant vertical coupling structure[J]. Photonics Research, 2022, 10(9): 2081
    Download Citation