Fiber to Chip Fusion Splicing for Robust, Low Loss Photonic Packaging

Silicon photonic devices are poised to enter high volume markets such as data-communications, telecommunications, biological sensing, and optical phased arrays; however, permanently attaching a fiber to the photonic chip with high optical efficiency remains a challenge. We present a robust and low-loss packaging technique of permanent optical edge coupling between a fiber and a chip using fusion splicing which is low-cost and scalable to high volume manufacturing. We fuse a SMF-28 cleaved fiber to the chip via CO$_2$ laser and reinforce it with optical adhesive. We demonstrate minimum loss of 1.0dB per-facet with 0.6dB penalty over 160nm bandwidth from 1480nm-1640nm.

[1]  J. Fédéli,et al.  Low-Loss ($<$ 1 dB) and Polarization-Insensitive Edge Fiber Couplers Fabricated on 200-mm Silicon-on-Insulator Wafers , 2010, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[2]  Bert Jan Offrein,et al.  Flip-chip optical couplers with scalable I/O count for silicon photonics. , 2013, Optics express.

[3]  R. Baets,et al.  High efficiency Silicon-on-Insulator grating coupler based on a poly-Silicon overlay. , 2006, Optics express.

[4]  Ciyuan Qiu,et al.  Efficient coupler between chip-level and board-level optical waveguides. , 2011, Optics letters.

[5]  R. C. Kistler,et al.  Efficient coupling of a semiconductor laser to an optical fiber by means of a tapered waveguide on silicon , 1989 .

[6]  Ultranarrow Silicon Inverse Taper Waveguide Fabricated with Double-Patterning Photolithography for Low-Loss Spot-Size Converter , 2012 .

[7]  P. Studenkov,et al.  An asymmetric twin-waveguide high-bandwidth photodiode using a lateral taper coupler , 2001, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[8]  M. Lipson,et al.  Nanotaper for compact mode conversion. , 2003, Optics letters.

[9]  Ray T. Chen,et al.  On-chip silicon optical phased array for two-dimensional beam steering. , 2014, Optics letters.

[10]  R. Baets,et al.  Compact efficient broadband grating coupler for silicon-on-insulator waveguides. , 2004, Optics letters.

[11]  T. Tsuchizawa,et al.  Low loss mode size converter from 0.3 /spl mu/m square Si wire waveguides to singlemode fibres , 2002 .

[12]  Wayne H Knox,et al.  Low loss fusion splicing of micron scale silica fibers. , 2008, Optics express.

[13]  T. Krauss,et al.  An out-of-plane grating coupler for efficient butt-coupling between compact planar waveguides and single-mode fibers , 2002 .

[14]  G. Reed.  Device physics: The optical age of silicon , 2004, Nature.

[15]  Michal Lipson,et al.  High Coupling Efficiency Etched Facet Tapers in Silicon Waveguides , 2014, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[16]  N. Shimizu.  Fusion splicing between deposited silica waveguides and optical fibers , 1984 .

[17]  R. Soref,et al.  The Past, Present, and Future of Silicon Photonics , 2006, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[18]  J. V. Galán,et al.  Polarization insensitive low-loss coupling technique between SOI waveguides and high mode field diameter single-mode fibers. , 2007, Optics express.

[19]  O. Mitomi,et al.  A simple laterally tapered waveguide for low-loss coupling to single-mode fibers , 1993, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[20]  Siegfried Janz,et al.  Refractive index engineering with subwavelength gratings for efficient microphotonic couplers and planar waveguide multiplexers. , 2010, Optics letters.

[21]  Andrew M. Weiner,et al.  Spectral line-by-line pulse shaping of an on-chip microresonator frequency comb , 2011, CLEO 2011.

[22]  R. Jones,et al.  Double-Stage Taper for Coupling Between SOI Waveguides and Single-Mode Fiber , 2008, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[23]  D. Marris-Morini,et al.  Light injection in SOI microwaveguides using high-efficiency grating couplers , 2006, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[24]  C. Doerr,et al.  Low-Loss and Broadband Cantilever Couplers Between Standard Cleaved Fibers and High-Index-Contrast Si $_{3}$N $_{4}$ or Si Waveguides , 2010, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[25]  Siegfried Janz,et al.  Fiber-chip edge coupler with large mode size for silicon photonic wire waveguides. , 2016, Optics express.

[26]  Tymon Barwicz,et al.  A Novel Approach to Photonic Packaging Leveraging Existing High-Throughput Microelectronic Facilities , 2016, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[27]  Chen S. Tsai,et al.  A silicon-based spot-size converter between single-mode fibers and Si-wire waveguides using cascaded tapers , 2007 .

[28]  Dim-Lee Kwong,et al.  Suspended optical fiber-to-waveguide mode size converter for silicon photonics. , 2010, Optics express.

[29]  Li Zhu,et al.  Very high efficiency optical coupler for silicon nanophotonic waveguide and single mode optical fiber. , 2017, Optics express.

[30]  T. Kippenberg,et al.  Microresonator based optical frequency combs , 2012, 2012 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO).

[31]  D. R. Rowland,et al.  Tapered mismatched couplers , 1991 .

[32]  K Egashira,et al.  Optical fiber splicing with a low-power CO(2) laser. , 1977, Applied optics.

[33]  Y. Vlasov,et al.  Ultra-low loss photonic integrated circuit with membrane-type photonic crystal waveguides. , 2003, Optics express.

[34]  T Pinguet,et al.  A Grating-Coupler-Enabled CMOS Photonics Platform , 2011, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[35]  T. Krauss,et al.  Compact and Highly Efficient Grating Couplers Between Optical Fiber and Nanophotonic Waveguides , 2007, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[36]  R Orobtchouk,et al.  High-Efficiency Light Coupling in a Submicrometric Silicon-on-Insulator Waveguide. , 2000, Applied optics.

[37]  Lei Liu,et al.  Low-loss and misalignment-tolerant fiber-to-chip edge coupler based on double-tip inverse tapers , 2016, 2016 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC).

[38]  K. Shiraishi,et al.  A Two-Port Single-Mode Fiber–Silicon Wire Waveguide Coupler Module Using Spot-Size Converters , 2009, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[39]  Jing Xu,et al.  Efficient spot size converter for higher-order mode fiber-chip coupling. , 2017, Optics letters.

[40]  Ming C. Wu,et al.  Large-scale silicon photonic switches with movable directional couplers , 2015 .

[41]  P. Sun,et al.  Compact cantilever couplers for low-loss fiber coupling to silicon photonic integrated circuits. , 2012, Optics express.

[42]  Peter Ossieur,et al.  Optical and Electronic Packaging Processes for Silicon Photonic Systems , 2015, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[43]  P. O'Brien,et al.  Packaging Process for Grating-Coupled Silicon Photonic Waveguides Using Angle-Polished Fibers , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology.

[44]  William Headley,et al.  A high efficiency input/output coupler for small silicon photonic devices. , 2005, Optics express.

[45]  G. Roelkens,et al.  Efficient silicon-on-insulator fiber coupler fabricated using 248-nm-deep UV lithography , 2005, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[46]  F. Arndt,et al.  Methods for passive fiber chip coupling of integrated optical devices , 2000, 2000 Proceedings. 50th Electronic Components and Technology Conference (Cat. No.00CH37070).

[47]  A. Kohl,et al.  Low-loss fibre-chip coupling by buried laterally tapered InP/InGaAsP waveguide structure , 1992 .

[48]  Anatol Khilo,et al.  Efficient planar fiber-to-chip coupler based on two-stage adiabatic evolution. , 2010, Optics express.

[49]  Tymon Barwicz,et al.  An o-band metamaterial converter interfacing standard optical fibers to silicon nanophotonic waveguides , 2015, 2015 Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition (OFC).

[50]  R Orobtchouk,et al.  Silicon Photonic Circuits: On-CMOS Integration, Fiber Optical Coupling, and Packaging , 2011, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[51]  T. Aalto,et al.  Low-loss converters between optical silicon waveguides of different sizes and types , 2006, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.