Geometrical Representation of a Polarisation Management Component on a SOI Platform

Abstract

Grating couplers, widely used in Silicon Photonics (SiPho) for fibre-chip coupling are polarisation sensitive components, consequently any polarisation fluctuation from the fibre optical link results in spurious intensity swings. A polarisation management componentis analytically considered, coupled with a geometrical representation based on phasors and Poincaré sphere, generalising and simplifying the treatment and understanding of its functionalities. A specific implementation in SOI is shown both as polarisation compensator and polarisation controller, focusing on the operative principle. Finally, it is demonstrated experimentally that this component can be used as an integrated polarimeter.

Co-packaged optics (CPO): status, challenges, and solutions

“…The magnitude of the optical signal transmitted through fiber will decrease due to intrinsic loss. The polarization state of the wave will change due to the asymmetry of the fiber and external disturbance [ 213 ]. The mode will be strongly mixed arbitrarily during propagation [ 214 ].…”

Editorial for the Special Issue on Silicon Photonics Bloom

“…This Special Issue of Micromachines , entitled “Silicon Photonics Bloom”, has 10 research papers and 2 review articles, covering the scale from material preparation [ 1 , 2 ], to single device design [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ], to photonic integration [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 ], to system architecture [ 12 ]. The demonstrated devices and components include source generation [ 1 , 5 , 6 , 11 ], modulators [ 7 ], switches [ 4 , 8 ], gratings [ 3 , 10 ], and couplers [ 9 , 12 ] and are applied to applications such as dispersion control [ 3 ], photonic memory [ 4 ], optic communication [ 8 , 10 ], polarization management [ 9 ], and photonic computing [ 12 ]. The spectrum of the contributed research spans a wide range, from visible [ 1 , 2 , 6 ], to telecom wavelength [ 3 , 4 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ], to mid-IR [ 11 ], to terahertz frequencies [ 5 ].…”

“…The active Si components serve as the building blocks for complex photonic integrations. By integrating phase shifter and multimode interferometers (MMI), a silicon-on-insulator (SOI)-based polarization controller is proposed and experimentally demonstrated in [ 9 ]. Geometrical analysis based on phasors and a Poincare sphere shows that the component can be configured as either a polarization compensator or a polarization controller.…”