Efficient power coupling to waveguides in high index contrast systems

Future integrated optical circuits will hold, on a single chip, several optical components that communicate via high index contrast waveguides. Silicon nitride (SixNy) and silicon oxynitride (SixOyNz) waveguides with silicon oxide cladding can be used to guide light on a chip because they have small dimensions, low scattering loss, and can be fabricated with silicon-based technology. With more components on a chip, we need to develop novel technologies to seamlessly route the optical signal from one waveguide to multiple waveguides simultaneously, or from the optical fiber to a waveguide. This thesis presents the design and fabrication of two such devices. The first is a compact multimode interference coupler, also called multi-mode interferometer (MMI), which can equally distribute the optical power from one input waveguide to multiple output waveguides. The prototypes were fabricated for silicon-rich SixNy waveguides with 1 input and 4 or 8 output ports. The second device is a compact fiber-to-waveguide coupler, which can efficiently confine the light from an optical fiber to a sub-micron waveguide.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Nguyen, Victor T. (Victor Trinh)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lionel C. Kimerling.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36211

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/36211