Ultra-Efficient Silicon-on-Insulator Grating Couplers With Backside Metal Mirrors

Hoppe, Niklas; Zaoui, Wissem Sfar; Rathgeber, Lotte; Wang, Yun; Klenk, Rouven H.; Vogel, Wolfgang; Kaschel, Mathias; Portalupi, Simone Luca; Burghartz, Joachim N.; Berroth, Manfred

doi:10.1109/jstqe.2019.2935296

Cited by 40 publications

(37 citation statements)

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“…For this task, grating couplers are commonly used due to their ease of integration and accessibility all over the chip surface. Recent coupler designs show excellent coupling efficiencies of up to -0.5 dB (Hoppe et al 2020), see Fig. 1.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With a suitable packaging process (see Snyder and OBrien 2013; Hoppe et al 2017) a compact and stable fiber-to-chip link can be realized. However, the spectral distribution of the efficiency of grating couplers is not uniform, but has a maximum at a distinct wavelength and then decays on both sides, resulting in a limited optical bandwidth of about 40 nm (Hoppe et al 2020;Zaoui et al 2014). There are other designs with enhanced bandwidth (Chen et al 2011Xu et al 2013), but reduced efficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Integrated dispersive structures for bandwidth-enhancement of silicon grating couplers

et al. 2020

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In photonic integrated circuits grating couplers are commonly used to establish an efficient and stable fiber-to-chip link. However, the actual coupling efficiency of a fiber-to-chip interface depends strongly on the used wavelength and exhibits a maximum at a distinct target wavelength, determined by grating design parameters. In this paper, an enhancement of the optical bandwidth of silicon grating couplers by adding integrated dispersive structures is discussed. These are realized by single layers, prism-like geometries and additional silicon nitride gratings. Theoretical considerations for a bandwidth-enhancement by dispersive layers are performed and applied to an existing grating coupler design. A simulated 1dB-bandwidth of up to 90 nm at a maximum efficiency of − 0.65 dB in the C-band could be achieved, which is an enhancement to a factor of about 2 compared with the original coupler design. Keywords Grating coupler • Silicon-on-insulator • Bandwidth-enhancement This article is part of the Topical Collection on Numerical Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated dispersive structures for bandwidth-enhancement of silicon grating couplers

et al. 2020

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“…Figure 1. State-of-the-art approaches to couple light between SOI chip and single-mode optical fiber with a sub-decibel loss using surface grating couplers: backside-processed SOIs with (a) metal mirror [28][29][30][31][32][33][34] and (b) Bragg reflector 21,23,35,36 , (c) overlayered waveguides [37][38][39][40] , (d) multi-level arrangements [42][43][44][45][46] , (e) interleaved geometry [48][49][50] , and (f) L-shaped profile [51][52][53][54][55][56] .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Improved coupling loss between SOI chips and optical fibers can be obtained by forming bottom metal mirrors [28][29][30][31][32][33][34] or Bragg reflectors 21,23,35,36 , both embedded at the chip backside, as shown in Figs. 1(a) and 1(b), respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Silicon chip-integrated fiber couplers with sub-decibel loss

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Alonso‐Ramos

Guerber

et al. 2020

Smart Photonic and Optoelectronic Integrated Circuits XXII

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Silicon nanophotonics represents a scalable route to deploy complex optical integrated circuits for multifold applications, markets, and end-users. Most recently, applications such as optical communications and interconnects, sensing, as well as quantum-based technologies, among others, present additional opportunities for integrated silicon nanophotonics to expand its frontiers from laboratories to industrial product development. Within a wide set of functionalities that silicon nanophotonic chips can afford, the availability of low-loss optical input/output interfaces has been regarded as a major practical obstacle that hampers long-term success of integrated photonic platforms. Indeed, fiber-chip interfaces based on diffraction gratings are an attractive solution to resonantly couple the light between planar waveguide circuits and standard single-mode optical fibers. Surface grating couplers provide much more alignment tolerance in fiber attach compared with most conventional edge-coupled alternatives, while retaining the much-needed control of the fiber placement on the chip surface and wafer-level-test capability that the in-plane convertors lack. Here, we report on our recent advances in the development of high-performance fiber-chip grating couplers that exploit the blazing effect. This is achieved with well-established dual-etch processing in interleaved teeth-trench arrangements or using L-shaped grating-teeth-profile geometries. The first demonstration of the L-shaped-based grating coupler yielded a coupling loss of-2.7 dB, seamlessly fabricated into a 300-mm foundry manufacturing process using 193-nm deep-ultraviolet stepper lithography. Moreover, silicon metamaterial L-shaped fiber couplers may promote robust sub-decibel coupling of light, reaching a simulated coupling loss of-0.25 dB, while featuring device layouts (>120 nm) compatible with lithographic technologies in silicon semiconductor foundries.

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“…For instance, periodic dielectric grating structures have been explored for efficient chip-to-fiber (fiber-to-chip) coupling [10], [11], and now there is renewed interest because of their unique ability for high-density PIC [12]- [17]. Recent approaches for grating-couplers include the use of metamaterials and backside metal mirrors to improve coupling efficiency [18], [19]. However, the very narrow operational wavelength range owing to the dispersive working principle constitutes a major hurdle for multichannel high performance communication [6], [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quasiperiodic Dielectric Gratings for Multiband Fiber-To-Chip Couplers

et al. 2020

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Dielectric gratings that couple optical fibers and planar waveguide circuits are key for optical-to-electronic (electronic-to-optical) signal conversion, but their applicability to platforms that require broader bandwidths and higher capacity is limited by their single-wavelength response. Herein, we present the design of a quasi-periodic grating coupler with multiband fiber-to-waveguide (waveguideto-fiber) coupling response, where the grating consists of a periodic repetition of unit cells made of alternating silicon and air grooves according to the Fibonacci sequence. Through finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) calculations, we show that this new device could be used for coupling multiwavelength fiber modes in a single grating structure. The results were obtained for fibers operating in the wavelength range from 1000 nm to 2000 nm, but the concept can be readily extended to other frequency ranges. Moreover, the allowed modes in the grating are almost insensitive to fiber misalignments and small fabrication errors for high Fibonacci steps, which is useful when alignment of optical components is impractical. It is hoped that properly designed gratings overlapping multiple modes may lead to ultra-broadband fiber-waveguide couplers that can cope with the growing demand for higher capacity and bandwidth in optical communications.

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Ultra-Efficient Silicon-on-Insulator Grating Couplers With Backside Metal Mirrors

Cited by 40 publications

References 29 publications

Integrated dispersive structures for bandwidth-enhancement of silicon grating couplers

Integrated dispersive structures for bandwidth-enhancement of silicon grating couplers

Silicon chip-integrated fiber couplers with sub-decibel loss

Quasiperiodic Dielectric Gratings for Multiband Fiber-To-Chip Couplers

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