Relaxed Tolerance Low-Loss Adiabatic Si3N4to Polymer Waveguide Coupler for Dense Interconnects

Erfan M. Fard, Soha Namnabat, Stephanie Arouh, Robert A. Norwood, Stanley Pau, Nasser Peyghambarian

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Despite significant advances in silicon photonics, optical packaging and interconnection of photonic integrated circuits constitutes a large portion of the associated manufacturing costs. Optical fibers are the dominant approach to optical interconnection. However, techniques that rely on fibers lack scalability, have low efficiency and show poor misalignment tolerance. Proposed alternative solutions using polymer waveguides have shown improved coupling efficiency, misalignment tolerance and scalability. Here we present the design, simulation and the experimental confirmation of an adiabatic silicon nitride taper to polymer waveguide coupler with only 0.52 dB of TE coupling loss at 1550-nm wavelength, excluding material loss. The coupler demonstrates \pm 4~\mu \text{m} of lateral misalignment tolerance with a 1-dB penalty which, to the best of our knowledge, is the highest reported tolerance for silicon nitride to polymer waveguide coupling.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1227-1230
Number of pages4
JournalIEEE Photonics Technology Letters
Volume33
Issue number22
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 15 2021

Keywords

  • Optical interconnections
  • nanophotonics
  • silicon photonics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Relaxed Tolerance Low-Loss Adiabatic Si3N4to Polymer Waveguide Coupler for Dense Interconnects'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this