Study of an Integration Platform Based on an Adiabatic Active-Layer Waveguide Connection for InP Photonic Device Integration Mirroring That of Heterogeneous Integration on Silicon

In this work, a photonic device integration platform capable of integration of active-passive InP-based photonic devices without the use of material regrowth is introduced. The platform makes use of an adiabatic active-layer waveguide connection (ALWC) to move an optical beam between active and passive devices. The performance of this platform is analyzed using an example made up of four main sections: (1) a fiber coupling section for enabling vertical beam coupling from optical fiber into the photonic chip using a mode-matched surface grating with apodized duty cycles; (2) a transparent waveguide section for realizing passive photonic devices; (3) an adiabatic mode connection structure for moving the optical beam between passive and active device sections; and (4) an active device section for realizing active photonic devices. It is shown that the coupled surface grating, when added with a bottom gold reflector, can achieve a high chip-to-fiber coupling efficiency (CE) of 88.3% at 1550 nm. The adiabatic active-layer mode connection structure has an optical loss of lower than 1% (CE > 99%). The active device section can achieve an optical gain of 20 dB/mm with the use of only 3 quantum wells. The optimized structural parameters of the entire waveguide module are analyzed and discussed.

Effect of misalignment on coupling efficiency in laser diode to single-mode circular core graded-index fiber coupling via cylindrical microlens on the fiber tip

We report here the first theoretical prediction of coupling efficiency of the laser diode to single-mode graded-index fiber coupling via cylindrical microlens on the tip of the fiber in presence of possible transverse and angular mismatches. Moderately efficient cylindrical microlens on the fiber is easily fabricable and graded-index fiber has less sensitivity to macro as well as micro bending. Thus this coupling device emerges as a potential candidate in the field of coupling optics. The analysis takes into consideration the allowable aperture provided by cylindrical microlens. Further, we shall consider here the coupling in the vertical plane only since the coupling in the horizontal plane has poor performance. Using the relevant ABCD matrix of refraction for a cylindrical lens in the vertical plane, we prescribe analytical expressions of the coupling efficiencies in presence of said kinds of misalignments. In our analysis, we use Gaussian field distribution for both the laser and fiber fields. We carry on our investigation for two commonly used wavelengths namely 1.3 and 1.5 µm. As an example of graded-index fiber, we use some typical step, parabolic, and triangular index fibers in our study. The execution of the prescribed formulations involves little computation. Thus the evaluation of the concerned coupling efficiencies is very much user friendly. The present analysis surfaces the tolerance factors of the coupling devices. Accordingly, the results will prove beneficial to designers and packagers in respect of the design of such coupler involving cylindrical microlens in the field of optimum launch optics.