Publication
IEEE Photonics Journal
Paper

Low-cost interfacing of fibers to nanophotonic waveguides: Design for fabrication and assembly tolerances

Download paper

Abstract

The high cost and low scalability of interfacing standard optical fibers to nanophotonic waveguides hinder the deployment of silicon photonics. We propose a mechanically compliant low-cost interface with integrated polymer waveguides. Our concept promises better mechanical reliability than a direct fiber-to-chip coupling and a dramatically larger bandwidth than diffractive couplers. Our computations show a 0.1-dB penalty over a 200-nm bandwidth, whereas typical two-polarization vertical couplers show a ~1-dB penalty over a 30-nm bandwidth. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of the design space using optimization routines to achieve a fabrication- and assembly-tolerant design. We demonstrate the concept feasibility through extensive tolerance analysis with parameter control assumptions derived from low-cost manufacturing. © 2009-2012 IEEE.

Date

Publication

IEEE Photonics Journal

Authors

Resources

Share