A 4 × 25 Gb/s ultrawide misalignment tolerance wavelength-division-multiplex (WDM) transmitter based on novel bidirectional vertical grating coupler has been demonstrated on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. Simulations indicate the bidirectional grating coupler (BGC) is widely misalignment tolerant, with an excess coupling loss of only 0.55 dB within ±3 μm fiber misalignment range. Measurement shows the excess coupling loss of the BGC is only 0.7 dB within a ±2 μm fiber misalignment range. The bidirectional grating structure not only functions as an optical coupler, but also acts as a beam splitter. By using the bidirectional grating coupler, the silicon optical modulator shows low insertion loss and large misalignment tolerance. The eye diagrams of the modulator at 25 Gb/s don’t show any obvious deterioration within the waveguide-direction fiber misalignment ranger of ±2 μm, and still open clearly when the misalignment offset is as large as ±4 μm.
An apodized surface grating coupler enabling the fabrication of silicon photonic nanowire sensor circuits in one lithography step