InGaAsP/InP tapered active layer multiquantum well laser with 1.8dB coupling loss to cleaved singlemode fibre

Tapered active layer MQW BH lasers with spot sizes closely matched to cleaved fibre are reported. A record low coupling loss of 1.8 dB to 101 μm core cleaved singlemode fibre has been obtained for a device with an 800 μm long taper     

Compact mode expanded lasers using resonant coupling between a1.55-μm InGaAsP tapered active region and an underlying couplingwaveguide

We demonstrate a novel expanded mode laser for enhanced laser-fiber coupling based on resonant coupling between a tapered active waveguide and an underlying coupling waveguide. This device was grown in a single standard epitaxial growth and was processed using conventional fabrication techniques, thus making it attractive for low-cost manufacturing. The total taper length required for mode transformation was 200 μm and the excess transformation loss was 0.6 dB indicating the compact, low-loss mode transformation. Far-field divergence angles (13°×24°) and improved coupling to cleaved single-mode fibers (3.8-dB coupling loss), were achieved     

Compact mode expanders using resonant coupling between a taperedactive region and an underlying coupling waveguide

A novel technique for enhanced laser-fiber coupling, based on resonant power coupling between a tapered active waveguide and an underlying coupling waveguide, is presented. Spot-sizes are transformed from 2.0×1.1 μm in the active region to 6.0×3.1 μm in the coupling waveguide, over a length of 200 μm, with a mode transformation loss of only 0.36 dB. Butt-coupling efficiencies of 55% (2.6 dB loss) are estimated to standard cleaved single-mode fibers at 1.55 μm. The proposed device requires a single epitaxial growth and conventional processing techniques, making it amenable for low-cost manufacturing     

Fabrication of 2×2 crosspoint switches using a sputtered SiO2 intermixing technique

We report the fabrication of a 2×2 crosspoint switch, which monolithically integrates passive waveguides and electroabsorption modulators on one chip, using the sputtered SiO₂ technique for quantum-well intermixing. The static performance of the modulators has been tested, and a modulation depth of 25 dB has been obtained at a wavelength of 1.55 μm for an applied bias of 2 V     

Theoretical and experimental studies of a spot-size transformerwith integrated waveguide for polarization insensitive opticalamplifiers

The simple fabrication technology of an active waveguide for polarization insensitive optical amplifiers, integrated with tapers and a passive waveguide for fiber coupling, is presented. The spot size transformation along the taper, yielding a mode expansion factor of more than 9 in horizontal direction and about 2 in vertical direction, is experimentally verified and the results are compared to theoretical computations. Using a cleaved single mode fiber, the coupling loss is as low as 2.6 dB with -1-dB positional tolerances of 2.2 μm and 1.5 μm in vertical and horizontal directions. Besides relaxing on fiber coupling, the large spot size transformation in horizontal direction allows for a drastic reduction of the reflection coefficient to less than 10^-3 at a facet tilted by 4° with respect to the waveguide axis     

Integration of an electrooptic polymer in an integrated opticscircuit on silicon

This paper presents the joining of active nonlinear polymer waveguides with passive silicon nitride waveguides (SiO₂-Si ₃N₄-SiO₂) to form an integrated Mach-Zehnder modulator with a lateral electrode configuration on a silicon substrate. Passive and active waveguides are based on a silicon-nitride-strip guiding structure. In the active waveguide a nonlinear polymer layer is used to obtain an index modulation via the electrooptic effect. Despite the silicon nitride strip based guiding structure, 63% of the energy of the fundamental mode is guided in the nonlinear polymer (provided by Flamel Technology, Venissieux, France). Poling with field strengths up to 75 V/μm applied to the lateral electrodes has been employed to orient the chromophores. A half wave voltage of 35 V has been measured for an electrooptic coefficient of 5.8 pm/V at a wavelength of 1.3 μm. Optical loss measurements have been done on polymer and passive waveguides. The best results have been 1.8 dB/cm for the active and 0.78 dB/cm for the passive waveguides leading to a total loss of 6 dB for a modulator with an interaction length of 2.5 cm. The coupling loss between a laser diode and the passive waveguide structure was measured to be at least 4.6 dB using a microscope objective and piezo-electric displacement elements. Stability tests under atmospheric conditions have shown a decrease of the electrooptic coefficient which might be due to the hygroscopic behavior of the active polymer. The bandwidth of the modulator has been determined to be 4 MHz     

2×2 optical waveguide switch with bow-tie electrode based oncarrier-injection total internal reflection in SiGe alloy

Based on the total internal reflection and the plasma dispersion effect of SiGe alloy, a 2×2 intersectional rib optical waveguide switch with bow-tie electrode has been proposed and fabricated for the wavelength of 1.3-μm operation. The thickness of the SiGe layer is 2.6 μm and the width is 9 μm. The branch angle of the switch is 2° and the bow-tie angle is 1.5°. The on-state crosstalk is -19.6 dB, the off-state extinction ratio is 38.5 dB and the off-state insertion loss is less than 1.70 dB. The switching time is about 180 ns     

Optical fiber up-tapers with high beam expansion ratios forcomponent fabrication

Optical fibre up-tapers with beam expansion ratios of 10, about twice the previously achieved value for the same taper outer diameter, have been fabricated and characterized. The increased beam expansion is achieved with a near step-index profile for the core of the taper. The excess coupling loss between two tapers is less than 0.1 dB. A lateral offset of more than 20 μm or an axial displacement of 4 mm between tapers caused an excess loss of 1 dB. The angular tolerance for this loss is a manageable 0.3°. These tapers permit, for a given beam expansion ratio, the manufacture of smaller outer diameter, more compact structures of self-aligned beam expansion. They also permit the insertion of optical elements into the expanded beam for the fabrication of inline single-mode passive fiber components     

A novel twin-ridge-waveguide optical amplifier switch

A novel twin ridge-waveguide optical amplifier switch is reported. The technique of hydrogen passivation of acceptors has been applied to decrease the current spreading in the region between the ridges. The incorporation of a passive waveguide below the active waveguide leads to the result that using 1.53 μm TE polarized light, through and cross states, each with only 1 dB insertion loss, fiber-to-fiber, can be selected in a device of 360 μm length by varying the currents to each ridge with a total current of 140 mA. A minimum crosstalk of less than -33 dB was achieved when the cross state was selected. This is the first report of a twin ridge-waveguide amplifier switch with such a low-loss, low-polarization sensitivity, and low crosstalk     

Efficient coupling in integrated twin-waveguide lasers usingwaveguide tapers

We demonstrate a 1.55-μm wavelength, InGaAsP-InP, twin-waveguide (TG) laser integrated with passive ridge waveguides using low-loss taper couplers. The lateral taper on the laser waveguide induces efficient resonant coupling of light between the active and passive layers. The device is fabricated using low-cost conventional photolithography and reactive ion etching of a TG structure grown by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy. This structure is suitable for integrating a variety of photonic devices without requiring epitaxial regrowth     

Reflection-type optical waveguide switch with bow-tie electrode

Based on the total internal reflection and the plasma dispersion effect of SiGe alloy, an intersectional rib optical waveguide switch with bow-tie electrode has been proposed and fabricated for operating wavelengths of 1.3 and 1.55 μm. The thickness of the SiGe layer is 2.6 μm and the width is 9 μm. The branch angle of the switch is 2° and the bow-tie angle is 1.5°. The crosstalks are -19.6 dB for 1.3 μm and -21.8 dB for 1.55 μm. At both wavelengths, the extinction ratio is larger than 38.5 dB and the insertion loss is less than 1.70 dB. The switching time is about 180 ns     

A 1×8 InP/InGaAsP optical matrix switch with low insertionloss and high crosstalk suppression

We present a current controlled passive 1×8 InP/InGaAsP optical matrix switch for routing applications at wavelength 1.55 μm. It is realized in a tree architecture and has integrated tapers for efficient fiber butt coupling. An AR coated device has average fiber-chip-fiber insertion losses of 6.8 and 6.3 dB for TE and TM polarizations, respectively. The homogeneity of the eight outputs is better than 0.3 dB in each polarization state. The crosstalk suppression is better than 19 dB. The performance of the device indicates that large InP-based switching matrices can be realized     

A high-speed low-voltage stress-induced micromachined 2×2optical switch

A low-voltage electrostatically actuated 2×2 fiber optic switch is achieved using a stress-induced curved polysilicon actuator. The curved polysilicon beam substantially lowers the electrostatic operating voltage of the switch. Large mirror displacement (300 μm) and low operating voltage (20 V) are obtained simultaneously. Sub-millisecond switching time (<600 μs), low optical insertion loss (0.7 dB), and small polarization-dependent loss (0.09 dB) have been achieved     

Compact, broadband, polarisation-insensitive 3 dB optical powersplitter on InP

The authors have demonstrated a compact (70 μm free-space radiation length), potentially robust, broadband (1.53-1.56 μm), polarisation-insensitive 3 dB optical power splitter based on InP using free-space radiative input-output coupling. This passive, 3 dB splitter is compatible with photonic integrated circuits     

Optical fiber-polymer guide coupling by a tapered graded indexglass guide

A new four layer tapered coupler (FLTC) has been studied and tested, able to transfer light efficiently from a monomode fiber to a polymer film guide by means of an auxiliary graded index glass waveguide. A simple theory has been developed to calculate the maximum efficiency of these structures. Experiments have been performed, at λ=1.321 μm, on several FLTC samples, containing K⁺-Na⁺ ion-exchanged glass waveguides and spin coated poly-3BCMU films. Insertion losses in the range 3-6.5 dB have been measured, depending on the taper configuration. The agreement between theoretical and experimental data is good, provided that a suitable ripple of the taper profile is assumed. The application of the new coupler to future integrated waveguide systems, including passive glass components and polymer based all optical devices, is assessed     

Low-loss and large-tolerance fiber coupling of high-Δ silicawaveguides by local mode-field conversion

Small mode-field silica waveguides with a high refractive index difference of 2% that were efficiently coupled to optical fiber using a local mode-field conversion technique are described. The waveguide end was heated locally at 1300°C for 10 h and this had the effect of doubling the mode-field diameter from 5.0 μm to about 10 μm with a taper length of 8 mm. It is shown that, as a result, the fiber coupling loss was drastically reduced from 2.4 to 0.1 dB and the alignment tolerance was doubled     

Low-loss fibre-chip coupling by buried laterally tapered InP/InGaAsP waveguide structure

A passive InP/InGaAsP spot-size transformer for low-loss coupling of semiconductor optoelectronic devices to single-mode fibres has been fabricated entirely on InP. Using a buried two-layer laterally tapered section, spot-size transformation is demonstrated from below 2 mu m up to 8 mu m, the spot size of a dispersion-shifted fibre at 1550 nm. For a chip without antireflection coating a total insertion loss of 2.7 dB was achieved at a taper length of approximately 600 mu m.<>     

AWG-based device for a WDM overlay PON in the 1.5 μm band

A novel concept has been developed for overlaying a power-splitting passive optical network (PON) in one wavelength band with a wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) PON in another wavelength band. An eight-channel device fabricated in silica technique shows an insertion loss of 3.5 dB and a crosstalk of -23 dB for the WDM channels around 1.55 μm wavelength. The 1 to 8 splitting function at 1.50 μm wavelength has an additional penalty of -1 dB and a uniformity of ±0.5 dB     

Design of a single-mode tapered waveguide for low-losschip-to-fiber coupling

The novel waveguide structures described in this paper have nonlinearly tapered shapes that result in low radiation losses despite their relatively short lengths. The core at the waveguide endface connected with the fiber has a very small cross section and an expanded mode field with a non-Gaussian shape. The taper structures are analyzed by using an improved step-transition method. This method is a based on the theory of enclosing a waveguide within electrical walls and that can therefore treat the radiation modes in a tapered waveguide as discrete mode spectra. Analyzing the relationships between the lengths and shapes of the tapers and the radiation loss due to the tapers show that appropriately tapered semiconductor waveguides operating at an optical wavelength of 1.55 μm and having a taper length of less than 0.7 mm can have a radiation loss of only 0.1 dB and a coupling loss with a conventional single-mode fiber of less than 0.5 dB     

Free-space fiber-optic switches based on MEMS vertical torsionmirrors

This paper reports on the design, fabrication, and performance of a novel MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical-system) fiber-optic switch based on surface-micromachined vertical torsion mirrors. The vertical torsion mirror itself can be used as a 1×2 or an ON-OFF switch. A 2×2 MEMS fiber-optic switch with four vertical torsion mirrors has also been fabricated. The switching voltage is measured to be 80 V for switching angles of 45°. We have achieved a switching time of less than 400 μs (fall time) and an optical insertion loss of 1.25 dB for single-mode fibers. In addition, a bulk-micromachined silicon submount has been developed to package the switch with microball lenses and multimode fibers with passive alignment. With the micromachined switch chip and the hybrid-packaging scheme, the size, weight, and potentially the cost of the fiber-optic switches can be dramatically reduced