Wavelength Sensing With Subpicometer Resolution Using Ultrahigh Order Modes

The ultrahigh order modes of a symmetrical metal-cladding optical waveguide, which exhibit strong wavelength dispersion characteristics, are used to track small wavelength changes of the light output of laser diodes. In the case of free-space coupling, the wavelength shift is transformed into an intensity variation of the light reflected on a surface of the waveguide. The sensitivity considering the divergence of the incident light and the thickness of the upper cladding is analyzed. A wavelength resolution of 0.5 pm at a center wavelength of 859.8 nm is demonstrated experimentally     

Design of a Silicon Based High Speed Plasmonic Modulator

In this paper, we propose a silicon-based high-speed plasmonic modulator. The modulator has a double-layer structure with a 16 μm long metal-dielectric-metal plasmonic waveguide at the upper layer and two silicon single-mode waveguides at the bottom layer. The upper-layer plasmonic waveguide acts as a phase shifter and has a dielectric slot that is 30 nm wide. Two taper structures that have gradually varied widths are introduced at the bottom layer to convert the photonic mode into plasmonic-slot mode with improved coupling efficiency. For a modulator with two 1 μm-long mode couplers, simulation shows that there is an insertion loss of less than 11 dB and a half-wave voltage of 3.65 V. The modulation bandwidth of the proposed modulator can be more than 100 GHz without the carrier effect being a limiting factor in silicon. The fabrication process is also discussed, and the proposed design is shown to be feasible with a hybrid of CMOS and polymer technology.     

Plasmonic States From Visible Light to Microwaves

Plasmonics is a phenomenon often considered in the visible light and near infrared, whereas typical metal waveguide modes are studied in the microwave regime. We demonstrate how plasmonic modes become conventional waveguide modes as the frequency varies from visible light to microwaves. In particular, given the metal permittivity at microwaves, the plasmonic dispersion becomes the conventional waveguide dispersion. Moreover, the surface plasmon dispersion at a single metal/insulator boundary can be extracted over a metal/insulator/metal (MIM) heterostructure if the metal-to-metal spacing is taken infinite. In doing so, the coupling effect of plasmonic modes is clearly revealed. As the symmetric coupled plasmon mode is known to correspond to the TEM $({hbox{TM}}_{0})$ mode, we found that the antisymmetric coupled surface plasmon mode is essentially related to the ${hbox{TM}}_{1}$ mode.      

双包层光纤芯径与位置影响吸收效率的研究

为了提高双包层光纤结构中泵浦光耦合进纤芯的效率,文章首先探索了常折射率内包层光纤中芯径与内包层尺寸比对吸收效率的影响.然后对端泵入射光进行建模,研究了纤芯偏心距的优化.数值模拟结果表明,当偏心距为R-r时,即纤芯位于内包层边缘时,吸收效率最高.文章还阐述了渐变折射率内包层对耦合效率的影响.     

High-Power, Highly Efficient Second-Harmonic Generation in a Periodically Poled ${hbox {MgO}}{:}{hbox {LiNbO}}_{3}$ Planar Waveguide

We designed a single-pass quasi-phase-matched second-harmonic generation (SHG) device with a planar waveguide; the device comprised a Y-cut 5 mol% MgO-doped LiNbO₃ (MgO:LiNbO₃)crystal core that was 3 mum thick and SiO₂ cladding. The waveguide provided a high coupling efficiency of 95% between an incident Gaussian beam and the fundamental guided mode of a fundamental wave; it also provided high electric-field confinement in the case of both the fundamental and SHG waves in the core. Thus, a high overlap between nonlinear polarization and an SHG-guided mode was attained. The bonding of the device with the waveguide side positioned downward to a heat sink provided a large heat radiation area when pumping with a near-collimated Gaussian beam, which reduced the temperature rise and its gradient along the waveguide to minimize the phase mismatch. We demonstrated the green light generation of 1.6 W with 40% conversion efficiency using a 7-mm-long sample and 1.2-W SHG with 60% efficiency using an 18-mm-long sample.     

Pumping planar waveguide amplifiers using a coupled waveguidesystem

A novel scheme is presented that can be used to efficiently pump optical waveguide amplifiers. It is based on the coupling between two adjacent waveguides, where pump light is gradually coupled from a nonabsorbing pump waveguide into the amplifier waveguide. The coupling between the waveguides in such a configuration is calculated using an improved coupled mode theory (CMT). The proposed distributed coupling scheme can enhance the optical gain in systems that exhibit a reduced pumping efficiency at high pump power. A numerical example is given for a sensitized neodymium-doped polymer waveguide amplifier, in which the optical gain increases from 0.005 dB to 1.6 dB by changing from conventional butt-coupling to distributed coupling     

大模场双包层光纤熔接的功率对准技术研究

为了提高高功率光纤激光器中大模场双包层光纤的熔接质量,采用NUFERN 20/400μm双包层光纤搭建了光功率对准系统,对大模场双包层光纤中存在包层光以及纤芯中只有基模和存在高阶模时光纤径向偏移与耦合效率的关系进行了理论分析和实验验证。结果表明,大模场双包层光纤中包层光和纤芯中高阶模的存在使耦合效率对径向偏移变化的敏感度降低,滤除包层光和高阶模后耦合效率随光纤径向偏移量呈高斯型变化; 使用光功率对准系统搭建千瓦级双端抽运激光系统,最大输出功率约1170W,光光转换效率约73%,光束质量约1.22,实现了千瓦级准单模输出。光功率对准技术能够实现待熔光纤的精确对准,对高功率光纤激光器输出性能的提升有重要意义。     

聚合物波导光栅耦合器的衍射场仿真

为了实现横截面尺寸为50 m50 m的聚硅氧烷聚合物光波导的耦合转向问题,设计了一种表面覆盖高折射率包层的多层蚀刻光栅耦合器。首先,分析了影响聚合物波导光栅耦合器耦合效率的结构因素;然后,采用在光栅表面蚀刻高折射率层的方法,提高了聚合物波导光栅耦合器的耦合效率;接着,对不同的周期（范围:100~4 000 nm）和不同的蚀刻深度（范围:0~50 000 nm）进行排列组合,形成不同的光栅结构,基于时域有限差分法编写程序,遍历所有情况,得到不同光栅结构下的光场情况以及其耦合效率,找到使耦合效率最大的周期以及蚀刻深度。最后,设计了多层蚀刻的光栅耦合器,进一步提高耦合效率。当蚀刻深度为5 000 nm,光栅周期为2 600 nm时,带高折射率层的聚硅氧烷聚合物光波导均匀光栅耦合器的耦合效率达到最大,为17.2%。采用多层蚀刻的方式,对结构进行优化,其耦合效率能达到37.4%。为聚硅氧烷聚合物光波导在光互连中的实际应用提供了理论依据。     

A broad-band waveguide grating coupler with a subwavelength grating mirror

A new diffractive device for light coupling between a planar optical waveguide and free space is proposed. The device utilizes a second-order waveguide grating to diffract the fundamental waveguide mode into two free propagating beams and a subwavelength grating (SWG) mirror to combine the two free propagating beams into a single beam. The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations show that the SWG mirror improves the coupling efficiency of the waveguide fundamental mode into the single out-coupled beam from about 30% to 92%. A high efficiency (>90%) is predicted for a broad wavelength range of 1520-1580nm. The proposed device is compact (/spl sim/80 /spl mu/m in length) and it eliminates the need for blazing the waveguide grating.     

超薄金属膜V-型槽等离子波导的定向耦合研究

分析了在 1 550 nm 波长下超薄金属膜(金膜厚t=10 nm)V-型槽等离子波导间长程沟道等离激元导模的定向耦合。通过计算不同波导间距下的模式分布,得出了定向耦合器中奇、偶模有效折射率实部和传播长度随波导间距的变化情况,并进一步计算了相邻波导间的耦合长度、最大串扰与波导间距的关系曲线。计算结果表明:在波导间距较小时,耦合长度小于各模式的传播长度,随着波导间距的增加,耦合长度随之增加,最大串扰随之减小。对超薄金属膜V-型槽等离子波导的定向耦研究在集成光路的实际应用中具有重要的价值。     

Fabrication of optical inverted-rib waveguides using UV-imprinting

In this paper we introduce a fabrication process for polymer rib waveguides that uses UV-imprint lithography. In the structure of an inverted-rib waveguide, the lower cladding of the waveguide is patterned by UV-imprinting and the waveguiding layer is subsequently spin-coated. That makes the thickness of the formed slab layer on the rib waveguide controllable by tuning the spin-coating parameters. The fabrication process utilizes two steps of UV-imprinting. The first one is to form a rigid polymer mold from positive tone photoresist. The second one is to pattern the waveguide lower cladding with the formed polymer mold. Through the two steps of UV-imprinting, rib waveguides can be fabricated without an etching procedure. We demonstrated the proposed fabrication process by fabricating 2-μm-wide waveguides operating in single mode at 1310 nm. With TE-polarized light, the fabricated waveguides show an average transmission of 58.6% in a 30 mm long waveguide, corresponding to a loss of 2.3 dB.     

Coupling light from incoherent sources to optical waveguides

Spatially coherent laser light can be coupled into an optical waveguide with nearly 100 percent efficiency. However, coupling light from a spatially incoherent source to a waveguide can be frustrating. Here the author describes how to efficiently couple blackbody radiation to optical fiber waveguides. The same basic principles hold for other types of waveguides, such as integrated optic waveguides. Radiation emitted from other types of extended sources, such as surface emitting LEDs or ionized gases, can be efficiently coupled to waveguides using the same techniques     

High-efficiency focusing waveguide grating coupler withparallelogramic groove profiles

A high-efficiency focusing waveguide grating coupler (FWGC) using parallelogramic group profiles is proposed, designed and fabricated. A new waveguide grating structure has been employed which consists of bilayered grating with one grating etched into the guiding layer and the other into a high-index cladding layer. Computer simulation shows that both high directionality and large radiation decay factor are obtainable with this structure. Fabrication of this FWGC by electron beam lithography is described. A coupling efficiency of 86% and focusing spot size full-width at half maximum (FWHM) of around 10 μm have been achieved     

Energy loss in a planar waveguide caused by a high refracting andabsorbing overlay

An explanation of the mode behavior in dielectric waveguides with an absorbing, high-refractive-index cladding is given. By considering the total waveguiding system as two separate waveguides, it is possible to attribute the behavior of the complex refractive index of the guided modes to the mixing of the modes of both waveguides. For systems with absorption, so-called quasi-leaky waves are observed in the total system for finite thicknesses of the overlay. For absorptionless systems these leaky waves are found only for infinite thicknesses of the overlay. The occurrence and behavior of these quasi-leaky waves versus the increasing overlay thickness are interpreted. A method for calculating the coupling efficiency of modes at the junction unclad waveguide-clad waveguide, taking into consideration waveguides with absorption, is presented. An experimental method for measuring the absorption coefficient for the guided modes in the cladded waveguide and the coupling losses at the unclad-clad waveguide junction was developed. The measured values are in a good agreement with the theoretical calculations     

Optical spot-size converters for low-loss coupling between fibersand optoelectronic semiconductor devices

Structures of spot size converters that allow low loss and easy coupling between an optical semiconductor device and a fiber are proposed and designed theoretically. These spot-size converters have a tapered small core for expanding the mode field. They also have a double cladding region which consists of an n⁺-doped InP substrate as the outer cladding and a p-doped or nondoped InP layer as the inner cladding with a ridge structure. This double cladding utilizes the plasma effect of a carrier which makes the refractive index of highly doped n-InP lower than that of p-doped or nondoped InP. The double-cladding structure can tightly confine an expanded mode field in the inner cladding, and results in low radiation loss at the tapered waveguide, in addition, this structure reforms the mode field shape into a Gaussian-like shape and achieves a low loss coupling of less than 1 dB with a large misalignment tolerance for fiber coupling. These spot-size converters are easily fabricated and applicable to all types of optical semiconductor devices     

Novel Grating Design for Out-of-Plane Coupling With Nonuniform Duty Cycle

We propose a waveguide grating coupler with nonuniform duty cycle for the out-of-plane coupling of light from a planar waveguide to an optical fiber, and evaluate the optical performances based on Bloch-wave analysis. The mode profile and focusing performance of the diffracted output beam are investigated in terms of the duty cycle to improve optical coupling efficiency.     

Improved coupling efficiency using Δn-controlled polymerwaveguides with two-dimensional spot-size transformation

A new type of polymer waveguide for two-dimensional spot-size transformation is reported, with which coupling efficiency of waveguides with 4- and 8-μm core diameters was reduced by ≈1.6 dB. The length needed for spot-size transformation was less than 1 mm along the direction of propagation. In this polymer waveguide, refractive index difference between core and cladding (Δn) is properly controlled along the direction of propagation while the core cross section is kept uniform     

缺陷型内包层双包层光纤吸收效率研究

缺陷型内包层双包层光纤由于其特殊的内包层横截面结构,对于光波的吸收效率要比理想圆型内包层双包层光纤提高许多.由于射线法在分析光波在光纤中的场分布、传播功率等情况时有其局限性,因此,文章改用波动理论对缺陷型内包层双包层光纤进行分析,试图找出不同类型的缺陷型内包层双包层光纤单位距离内吸收效率的差异.     

Finite Element Analysis of Lossless Propagation in Surface Plasmon Polariton Waveguides With Nanoscale Spot-Sizes

We present simulation results on the propagation characteristics of active plasmonic waveguides at 1.55 mum wavelength based on semiconductors as the active gain media. Three waveguide structures were investigated: metal rib, metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM), and triangular metal groove. In all three structures, we observed strong plasmon mode confinement with nanoscale spot-sizes and corresponding simulated gain values compatible with existing semiconductor technology. We show the effect of systematic modification of waveguide geometry on the required gain for achieving lossless propagation in all the three plasmonic waveguide structures. We demonstrate that lossless propagation with subwavelength spot sizes well below the diffraction limit of light can be obtained by controlling the geometrical parameters of the proposed waveguides.     

A simple laterally tapered waveguide for low-loss coupling tosingle-mode fibers

Low-loss coupling between semiconductor photonic devices and single-mode fibers is achieved using a simple InP/InGaAsP tapered waveguide. The proposed simple structure has a small and nearly square guiding core at its output facet. In this structure, the output field has a non-Gaussian profile, but low-pass filter coupling can be achieved by optimizing the design of the guiding core sizes. The waveguide is composed of a laterally tapered InGaAsP guiding layer and an InP cladding region on an InP substrate, facilitating integration of the waveguide with active devices using conventional processes. The waveguide is shown to have a total insertion loss of 2.6 dB, including a coupling loss of 0.9 dB and large ±2.5-μm misalignment tolerance in lateral and vertical directions with single-mode filters