Optimization of integrated polarization filters

TL;DR

This paper presents the design of compact integrated polarization filters using engineered photonic lattices, achieving high polarization purity and efficiency, with the ability to tailor output beam profiles.

Contribution

It introduces a novel design approach for integrated polarization filters based on photonic lattices optimized via a parallel tabu search algorithm.

Findings

Achieved up to 98% polarization degree

Transmission efficiency exceeds 75%

Able to output arbitrary transverse beam profiles

Abstract

This study reports on the design of small footprint, integrated polarization filters based on engineered photonic lattices. Using a rods-in-air lattice as a basis for a TE filter and a holes-in-slab lattice for the analogous TM filter, we are able to maximize the degree of polarization of the output beams up to 98 % with a transmission efficiency greater than 75 %. The proposed designs allow not only for logical polarization filtering, but can also be tailored to output an arbitrary transverse beam profile. The lattice configurations are found using a recently proposed parallel tabu search algorithm for combinatorial optimization problems in integrated photonics.