1. Introduction
Silicon photonics based on SOI (silicon-on-insulator) nano-photonic waveguides is a promising technology for integrated photonics due to the unique properties of the ultra-high-index contrast silicon waveguide systems, and the use of advanced microelectronics manufacturing technologies[1]. Despite such positive prospects, one major problem is the issue of coupling light in and out of the nano-photonic circuits by means of optical fibers[2]. A completely different approach is the use of a grating to couple light into the thinner sub-micrometer waveguides. Because grating couplers are vertical or quasi-vertical couplers, they are usually based on the second order diffraction peak, which couples into the horizontally propagating fundamental mode of the nano-waveguide, and can be placed anywhere over the chip, not only at the edge[3]. So compared with edge coupling structures such as 3D adiabatic tapers or inverse tapers[4, 5], such couplers allow light coupling without the need for prior dicing of the chip, which also makes wafer-scale testing of the nano-photonic circuits possible.
The high integration density and low power consumption are necessary for a photonic network that requires optical devices with even smaller dimensions than have been demonstrated to date. The MR is an important optical component in modulators, switches, filters and sensors[6-9]. Silicon MR is a popular choice for such applications because it has a small size and high quality factor (
In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate a passive photonic integrated circuit. We introduce the device fabrication and vertical coupling method to couple the light into the silicon nano-waveguide, describe the
2. The device and its coupling to the fiber
2.1 Silicon micro-ring resonator
In our photonic integrated circuits, the 10
2.2 Vertical coupling mode
At each end of the straight silicon waveguide, there is a waveguide grating coupler to couple the light between a single-mode fiber (SMF) and the silicon nano-photonic waveguide. The grating coupler is polarization-dependent, and for a 600 nm period, with a filling factor of 50% and shallow etched 100 nm into the top silicon layer, it only supports the TE mode. The grating takes care of the vertical spot-size conversion for horizontal spot-size conversion. This vertical coupling method has advantages in terms of easy alignment and simple fabrication of the mode converter compared to other coupling methods. Figure 2 shows an SEM photograph of the waveguide grating at the end of the straight waveguide.
3. Operating principle and experimental setup
3.1 Operating principle
Generally, the quality factor of the micro-ring resonator is defined in terms of the ratio of energy stored in the resonator to the energy being lost in one cycle. The quality factor of an SOI micro-ring resonator coupled with a single-mode waveguide is given by:
1Q=1Qint+1Qcou. |
(1) |
There are three major factors that affect the quality factor of an SOI micro-ring resonator. (1) The internal absorption loss of the micro-ring resonator. When a micro-ring resonator is isolated and not coupled to a waveguide or any other devices, its quality factor is limited by the material property. The absorption loss is given by the sum of the core and cladding absorption losses. (2) Radiation loss that is caused by roughness scattering as well as bending loss, and the trend of
3.2 Experimental setup
In our experiment, the excess loss through the complete structure was measured in the wavelength range from 1520 to 1580 nm using an Agilent 8164B wavelength domain component analyzer and a tunable light source with a 1 pm line width. The polarization in the input fiber was optimized for TE coupling with a "bat ear" fiber polarization controller. The input and output fibers were, respectively, positioned on two electromechanical 6D stages with 20 nm resolution. These should be placed under a certain angle (typically 9.5
4. Experimental results
4.1 Vertical coupling efficiency
As can be seen in Fig. 3, when the laser is input with 0 dBm, the grating coupling efficiency is seen obviously when the MR is not in a resonance state, and 1540 nm is the highest transmission. So, the waveguide grating wavelength response curve is a 1 dB bandwidth of 40 nm at 1540 nm telecommunication wavelengths, and the measured fiber-to-fiber coupling loss is 10 dB. The grating coupling efficiency was superior to the edge coupling structure with tapered waveguide structures[4, 5].
4.2 Spectral response of the MR
To measure the spectral response of the micro-ring resonator, we sweep the tunable laser with a minimum step of 0.05 nm. The measured micro-ring resonance spectra are shown in Fig. 3, and the free spectral range (FSR) of the micro-ring resonator is about 9.5 nm. As shown in Fig. 4, we sweep the tunable laser with a minimum step of 0.0015 nm, and the resonance wavelength is 1532.5405 nm. The spectrum shows a 21 dB drop in transmission at the resonant wavelength when the light in the waveguide is coupled to the ring and is lost from scattering at the sidewalls of the ring. The 3 dB bandwidth is about 0.014 nm, corresponding to a
4.3 Summary of the observations
As can be seen in Fig. 3, the micro-ring resonator is slightly under-coupled at this resonant wavelength. The intrinsic quality factor
Qint=2Qloaded1+√T0, |
(2) |
where
F=FSRΔλ3dB≈2παmicroringL=1αmicroringR. |
(3) |
The performance of a high-
α=π×Δλ3dB(1−√T0)/FSR, |
(4) |
t=2π×Δλ3dB√T0/FSR, |
(5) |
αmicroring=−10lg(1−t)/2πR. |
(6) |
So we obtain from Fig. 4 a Lorentzian fit to the resonance at
4.4 Silicon micro-ring resonator temperature characteristics
When a pump light with power is injected into the micro-ring resonator, the absorbed energy is eventually converted into thermal energy and leads to a temperature shift
Δλ0ΔT=(neffαsub+ΔneffΔT)λ0neff, |
(7) |
where
5. Conclusion
In summary, we presented a photonic integrated circuits system in this paper, where EBL and ICP etching are used to fabricate such silicon photonics devices. For a 450 nm width and a radius with a 15