Subwavelength metamaterial engineering for silicon photonics

Waveguides structured at the subwavelength scale frustrate diffraction and behave as optical metamaterials with controllable refractive index. These structures have found widespread applications in silicon photonics, ranging from sub-decibel efficiency fibre-chip couplers to spectrometers and polarization rotators. Here, we briey describe the design foundations for sub-wavelength waveguide devices, both in terms of analytic effective medium approximations, as well as through rigorous Floch-Bloquet mode simulation. We then focus on two novel structures that exemplify the use of subwavelength waveguides: mid-infrared waveguides and ultra-broadband beamsplitters.

[1]  Siegfried Janz,et al.  Single-etch subwavelength engineered fiber-chip grating couplers for 1.3 µm datacom wavelength band. , 2016, Optics express.

[2]  Siegfried Janz,et al.  Waveguide sub‐wavelength structures: a review of principles and applications , 2015 .

[3]  Siegfried Janz,et al.  Broadband polarization independent nanophotonic coupler for silicon waveguides with ultra-high efficiency. , 2015, Optics express.

[4]  T. Aalto,et al.  Adiabatic and Multimode Interference Couplers on Silicon-on-Insulator , 2006, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[5]  I Molina-Fernández,et al.  Suspended silicon mid-infrared waveguide devices with subwavelength grating metamaterial cladding. , 2016, Optics express.

[6]  P. Cheben,et al.  Subwavelength waveguide grating for mode conversion and light coupling in integrated optics. , 2006, Optics express.

[7]  I Molina-Fernández,et al.  Colorless directional coupler with dispersion engineered sub-wavelength structure. , 2012, Optics express.

[8]  Shon Schmidt,et al.  Sub-wavelength grating for enhanced ring resonator biosensor. , 2016, Optics express.

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

[10]  Nicolas A. F. Jaeger,et al.  Apodized Focusing Fully Etched Subwavelength Grating Couplers , 2015, IEEE Photonics Journal.

[11]  Alejandro Ortega-Moñux,et al.  Fourier Based Combined Techniques to Design Novel Sub-Wavelength Optical Integrated Devices , 2012 .

[12]  Pavel Cheben,et al.  Controlling leakage losses in subwavelength grating silicon metamaterial waveguides. , 2016, Optics letters.

[13]  Ivan Glesk,et al.  Subwavelength grating filtering devices. , 2014, Optics express.

[14]  I Molina-Fernández,et al.  Suspended SOI waveguide with sub-wavelength grating cladding for mid-infrared. , 2014, Optics letters.

[15]  E.C.M. Pennings,et al.  Optical multi-mode interference devices based on self-imaging: principles and applications , 1995 .

[16]  Lukas Chrostowski,et al.  Design and fabrication of SOI micro-ring resonators based on sub-wavelength grating waveguides. , 2015, Optics express.

[17]  Nicolas A. F. Jaeger,et al.  Compact Broadband Directional Couplers Using Subwavelength Gratings , 2016, IEEE Photonics Journal.

[18]  J. Ctyroky,et al.  3-D Bidirectional Propagation Algorithm Based on Fourier Series , 2012, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[19]  Pavel Cheben,et al.  Evanescent field waveguide sensing with subwavelength grating structures in silicon-on-insulator. , 2014, Optics letters.

[20]  Pavel Cheben,et al.  Broadband fiber-chip zero-order surface grating coupler with 0.4  dB efficiency. , 2016, Optics letters.

[21]  Fan Zhang,et al.  Broadband 2 × 2 adiabatic 3  dB coupler using silicon-on-insulator sub-wavelength grating waveguides. , 2016, Optics letters.

[22]  Jens H. Schmid,et al.  Ultra‐broadband nanophotonic beamsplitter using an anisotropic sub‐wavelength metamaterial , 2016 .

[23]  Ke Wang,et al.  Fluorescence Signal Generation Optimization by Optimal Filling of the High Numerical Aperture Objective Lens for High-Order Deep-Tissue Multiphoton Fluorescence Microscopy , 2015, IEEE Photonics Journal.