Low-loss, high- Delta , single-mode channel waveguides for high-density integrated optical devices

Low-loss, high- Delta , single-mode channel waveguides having cores of SiO/sub 2/-Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ mixture film are successfully fabricated using sputtering and reactive ion-beam etching. Propagation loss is less than 0.6 dB/cm, and no bending loss for 500 mu m curvature radius at 1.3 mu m wavelength is achieved for an optical waveguide having a relative index difference of 5.6%.<>     

Analysis of Optical Waveguide Consisting of a Square-Law Lenslike Medium and its Analogies to Circular TE/sub 01/ waveguide

Propagation behavior of light beams along sinusoidal and serpentine bends as well as circular bends and linearly tapered bends of optical waveguides consisting of a square-law Ienslike medium is investigated in detail, both theoretically and numerically, on the basis of the approximate wave theory. A new design method of the circular bend for removing the effects of the bend is proposed and numerical results are presented. The divergence phenomena of the beam trajectory in both the sinusoidal and serpentine bends of the optical waveguide are discussed in comparison with mode-conversion phenomena occurring in the circular TE/sub 01/ waveguide with the same bends. Several design conditions to eliminate undulations of the beam trajectory and/or the spot size which would occur at a circnlar bend of the optical waveguide are also studied, and interesting analogies to the design conditions proposed so far to prevent mode-conversion losses at a circular bend of the TE/sub 01/ waveguide are shown.     

Estimation of polarization crosstalk at a micro-bend in Si-photonic wire waveguide

The singlemode Si-photonic wire waveguide allows sharp bends, which significantly expands the design flexibility of optical devices and circuits. Here, the suppression of the polarization crosstalk at a sharp bend will be an important issue, since a large crosstalk affects the performance of devices and circuits. In this study, the three-dimensional (3-D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation showed that the crosstalk at a 90/spl deg/-bend with a radius of 0.35-1.75 /spl mu/m is less than -25 dB at a wavelength of 1.55 /spl mu/m. In the experiment, the crosstalk from TE-like to TM-like polarization was evaluated to be -13 dB to -10 dB. This large value was explained by a small tilt of waveguide sidewalls, which seriously increased the crosstalk. In addition, it was found in the calculation that some combinations of bends increase or decrease the crosstalk, and that a U-shape bend is the most effective for the suppression of the crosstalk.     

Reduction of bend losses in Ti:LiNbO3 waveguides through MgO double diffusion

A significant reduction in bend losses in Y-cut Ti: LiNbO3waveguides by means of a double-diffusion technique is reported. Compared to pure Ti: LiNbO3 waveguide bends, MgO: Ti: LiNbO3 waveguide bends offer a reduction in the necessary bend radius by a factor as large as eight, if a total bend excess loss of 1 dB is allowable.     

Single-mode low-loss buried optical waveguide bends in GaInAsP/InP fabricated by dry etching

Low-loss single-mode buried optical waveguide bends in MOVPE-grown InP-based materials are reported. Reactive ion etching (RIE) was used to fabricate the curves which were subsequently buried in InP to reduce optical losses and to control the number of lateral guided modes. Losses as low as 1.1 dB for 200 mu m radius of curvature and 0.3 dB for 300 mu m radius of curvature have been measured using TE-polarised light at 1.553 mu m wavelength.<>     

不同切型质子交换弯曲波导的弯曲损耗研究

退火质子交换铌酸锂光波导是一类重要的光波导。对2种不同切型的3种常用S形弯曲质子交换光波导,利用宽角有限差分光束传播法进行了分析。结果表明,3种弯曲波导的弯曲损耗,随波导结构参数的变化基本上是相同的,而在相同的波导结构参数下,X切型的质子交换光波导的弯曲损耗总体上都要小于Z切型的质子交换光波导。数值计算结果为相应波导器件的设计和制备提供了一定的参考。     

Experimental woodpile EBG waveguides, bends and power dividers at microwave frequencies

Experimental waveguides, bends and power dividers in the woodpile electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) material at Ku-band are demonstrated. Prototypes are fabricated from alumina, and use an efficient waveguide transition to enable high quality measurements. Low-loss transmission is demonstrated for a waveguide and a 90/spl deg/ bend, and near equal power division shown for a woodpile EBG waveguide power divider. The components have the potential to be scaled for applications at millimetre-wave and terahertz frequencies     

Design and fabrication of zinc oxide thin-film ridge waveguides on silicon substrate with ultraviolet amplified spontaneous emission

Zinc oxide (ZnO) thin-film ridge waveguides have been designed and fabricated on n-type (100) silicon substrate. A filtered cathodic vacuum arc technique is used to deposit high-crystal-quality ZnO thin films on lattice-mismatched silicon substrates at 230/spl deg/C. A ridge waveguide of width /spl sim/2 /spl mu/m and height /spl sim/0.1 /spl mu/m is defined on the ZnO thin film by plasma etching. Room-temperature amplified spontaneous emission is observed with peak wavelength at /spl sim/385 nm under 355-nm optical excitation. It is found that the net optical gain of the ZnO thin-film ridge waveguides can be as large as 120 cm/sup -1/ at a pump intensity of /spl sim/1.9 MW/cm/sup 2/.     

Monolithic integration of curved waveguides and channeled-substrate DH lasers by wet chemical etching

Integration of AlGaAs/GaAs curved waveguides and other two-dimensional waveguides with DH lasers and detectors is demonstrated. Devices are fabricated from LPE AlGaAs/GaAs layers by wet chemical etching processes. Differential transfer efficiencies ofeta_{t}= 5percent are routinely achieved in a structure consisting of an integrated laser, a 90° curved waveguide with 150μm radius, and a detector, for the case where one laser mirror is etched and one cleaved. This value iseta_{t}= 4percent if both mirrors are etched. A comparison of waveguide attenuation between straight and curved rib waveguides is given, along with the transfer characteristics of curved waveguides. The loss coefficient of curved rib waveguides with 150-μm radius is about two times that of a straight waveguide of the same length. The fabrication and properties of channeled-substrate crescent (CSC) lasers and detectors with transverse single-mode confinement, monolithically integrated by means of passive CSC interconnecting waveguides, is also described.     

Er-doped glass ridge-waveguide amplifiers fabricated with a collimated sputter deposition technique

We report a new fabrication process for Er-doped glass ridge waveguides. The process does not require etching of an Er-doped film in defining the lateral dimension of a waveguide, but involves a liftoff process using polyimide as a sacrificial layer. An Er-doped soda-lime silicate glass film (1.5 /spl mu/m thick) was deposited at 350/spl deg/C using a collimated sputtering technique. Conventional sputtering techniques have been known to be incompatible with a liftoff process. The collimated sputtering, however, allowed us easy liftoff of Er-doped films, and produced well-defined ridges with smooth surface profiles. A 1.7-cm-long waveguide thus fabricated shows a 1.55-/spl mu/m signal enhancement of 15.4 dB with a 980-nm pump power of 40 mW. This enhancement fully compensates for both Er absorption and waveguide losses, and results in a gain of 7.2 dB.     

Air trenches for sharp silica waveguide bends

Air trench structures for reduced-size bends in low-index contrast waveguides are proposed. To minimize junction loss, the structures are designed to provide adiabatic mode shaping between low- and high-index contrast regions, which is achieved by the introduction of "cladding tapers." Drastic reduction in effective bend radius is predicted. We present two-dimensional (2-D) finite-difference time-domain/effective index method simulations of bends in representative silica index contrasts. We also argue that substrate loss, while present, can be controlled with such air trenches and reduced to arbitrarily low levels limited only by fabrication capabilities. The required trench depth, given an acceptable substrate loss, is calculated in three dimensions using an approximate equivalent current sheet method and also by a numerical solver for full-vector leaky modes. A simple, compact waveguide T-splitter using air trench bends is presented.     

E- and H-Plane Bends for High-Power Oversized Rectangular Waveguide

A study is presented of theoretical and experimental results of E- and H-plane bends for high-power oversized rectangular waveguide having cross-section dimensions in the range between 1..5 and 2.5 free space wavelengths. It is expected that waveguides having these dimensions will be able to transmit 50 to 100 kW of average power at X-band without water cooling. The transmission of at least 5.0 MW of peak power at X-band without pressurization is also a design objective. Dimensions for bends having low-mode conversion loss were determined by numerical integration of the coupled transmission line equations. The dominant TE/sub 10//spl square/ mode and four spurious modes were considered in these calculations. The results obtained for both constant curvature and sinusoidally shaped E- and H-plane bends are presented. A compact H-plane constant curvature bend is described for which the ratio of centerline radius to waveguide width is equal to 1.48. The measured mode conversion loss to the TE/sub 20//spl square/, TE/sub 30//spl square/, and TE/sub 40//spl square/ modes for an experimental model having a width equal to 2.25 inches was less than -20 dB in the frequency range from 7.0 to 11.0 Gc/s.     

Experimental verification of numerically optimized photonic crystal injector, Y-splitter, and bend

We present the experimental measurement of a photonic crystal (PhC) device comprising an injector, Y-splitter, and 60/spl deg/ bend. The complete device consists of a 9-/spl mu/m-long injector tapering down from 5 /spl mu/m into a triangular-lattice-of-holes single-line defect waveguide with period a=430 nm and 36.2% air filling factor (corresponding to a radius over period (r/a) ratio of 0.30), an optimized Y-junction, 60/spl deg/ bend and output injectors, with a total device footprint of 30 /spl mu/m. This is etched into a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure using chlorine/argon chemically assisted ion beam etching (CAIBE). An erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA)-based source and Fabry-Perot technique are used to characterize the device. The device displays a bandwidth of approximately 110 nm in the 1.55 /spl mu/m window, and a transmission of 70% relative to the same length of 5-/spl mu/m-wide waveguide. This is compared with three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3-D FDTD) results, which have a bandwidth and transmission of 120 nm and 75%, respectively. The highlight of this paper is the close agreement of the numerically optimized complete microcircuit with its experimental equivalent, and the significant improvement in bandwidth over previous work on Y-junctions.     

Investigation of optical losses in photoelastic and ridge waveguides in GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructures

Two approaches have been used to fabricate stable photoelastic waveguides with planarized surfaces on GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructures. The first approach uses tensile Ni/sub 3/GaAs stressors formed by metal-semiconductor reactions. The second approach uses inert, refractory and compressive stressors, such as RF sputtered W and RF co-sputtered WNi films. For comparison purposes, ridge waveguides have also been fabricated using the same heterostructure by a dry etching technique. Optical losses of photoelastic waveguides, measured by Fabry-Perot (FP) method at a wavelength of 1.53 /spl mu/m, are comparable to or better than those of the ridge waveguides. Material loss appears to be the primary loss mechanism in both photoelastic and ridge waveguides. These results indicate that the photoelastic waveguide processing technique reported in this study is a promising alternative to commonly used dry etching techniques for planarization.     

Low-loss Ti:LiNbO3waveguide bends at λ = 1.3 µm

Low-loss waveguide bends are necessary for many proposed integrated optical circuits. The bend loss associated with anS-shaped transition connecting offset 6 μm wide titanium-indiffused lithium niobate strip waveguides has been measured as a function of transition length and initial Ti metal thickness for 1.3 μm wavelength. Losses as low as 0.2 ± 0.2 dB have been achieved for a transition between offset parallel waveguides with a 0.1 mm lateral and 3.25 mm longitudinal separation. The bend loss is shown to be strongly dependent on the mode confinement and less sensitive to the shape of the transition curve.     

SOI波导弯曲损耗改善方法的研究

采用有效折射率方法EIM(Effective Index Method)和二维束传播算法(2D-BPM)对SOI(Sillcon-on—insulator)波导弯曲损耗的改善方法进行了模拟分析．模拟发现,在波导连接处引入偏移量和在波导外侧刻槽等两种不同方法都能有效减小弯曲损耗,并且后者的效果更明显．同时通过实验获得了验证．对R=16mm、横向位移为70μm的弯曲波导,通过刻槽方法将插入损耗降低了5dB,基本消除了弯曲所带来的附加损耗.     

SOI波导弯曲损耗影响因素的分析

采用有效折射率方法EIM(effective index method)和二维束传播算法（2D-BPM）对SOI (silicon-on-insulator）波导弯曲损耗的几种影响因素进行了分析. 通过模拟发现弯曲损耗随弯曲半径的增大、波导宽度的增加及内外脊高比的减小而减小. 同时，改进波导结构，例如在弯曲波导外侧刻槽可以减小SOI脊形波导的弯曲损耗.     

Experimental evaluation of bend radiation losses in millimetric dielectric waveguide

A crucial parameter in the design of compact dielectric waveguide integrated circuits is the minimum bend radius below which radiation losses become prohibitive. It is shown that, for waveguides with a relative permittivity of 10, values of bend radii down to four guide wavelengths are acceptable.     

Fabrication of single-mode polymeric optical waveguides bylaser-beam writing

A laser-beam writing system is developed for large-area optical waveguide fabrication. Single-mode embedded channel optical waveguides are successfully fabricated on both 4- and 8-in silicon substrates using deuterated fluoromethacrylate polymers by laser-beam writing in photoresist and dry etching. The propagation loss of the waveguides is as low as 0.1 dB/cm at 1.3 μm     

Neodymium-doped tantalum pentoxide waveguide lasers

The fabrication, spectroscopic properties, and laser performance of Nd/sup 3+/-doped Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ channel waveguide lasers are described. Lasing is obtained at both 1.066 and 1.375 /spl mu/m with threshold pump powers as low as 2.7 mW. The rib waveguides are reactive-ion-etched into Nd:Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/ layers formed by reactive magnetron sputtering. These high-index low-loss rare-earth-doped waveguides are fabricated on silicon substrates and offer the potential for integration with photonic crystal structures for compact optical circuits.