Towards Polarization Diversity on the SOI Platform With Simple Fabrication Process

We present a polarization diversity circuit built on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform, which can be fabricated by a simple process. The polarization diversity is based on two identical air-clad asymmetrical directional couplers, which simultaneously play the roles of polarization splitter and rotator. A silicon polarization diversity circuit with a single microring resonator is fabricated on the SOI platform. Only <;1-dB polarization-dependent loss is demonstrated. A significant improvement of the polarization dependence is obtained for 20-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (NRZ-DPSK) demodulation using the polarization diversity circuit, compared to a single microring resonator without polarization diversity.