Implementation of on-chip multi-channel focusing wavelength demultiplexing with regularized digital metamaterials

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel, compact two-channel wavelength demultiplexer using regularized digital metamaterials, achieving high performance and tolerance, and demonstrating potential for various integrated photonic devices.

Contribution

The authors introduce a new design method for ultra-compact, multi-channel wavelength demultiplexers based on regularized digital metamaterials, surpassing traditional device size limitations.

Findings

Footprint of 2.4 x 10 um2 for the demultiplexer

Insertion loss of -1.77 dB and -2.10 dB for the two channels

Fabrication tolerance of 20 nm in etching depth and 10 nm in size

Abstract

Adiabatic waveguide taper and on-chip wavelength demultiplexer are the key components of photonic integrated circuits. However, these two kinds of devices which designed by traditional semi-analytic methods or brute-force search methods usually have large size. Here, based on regularized digital metamaterials, we have designed, fabricated and characterized a two-channel focused wavelength demultiplexer with a footprint of 2.4 x 10 um2. The designed demultiplexer can directly connect to a grating coupler under the absence of an adiabatic waveguide taper. The objective first method and modified steepest descent method are used to design the demultiplexer which splits 1520 nm and 1580 nm light from a 10-um-wide input waveguide into two 0.48-um-wide output waveguides. Experimental results show that the insertion loss of the upper (lower) channel of the demultiplexer is -1.77 dB (-2.10 dB) and the crosstalk is -25.17 dB (-12.14 dB). Besides, the simulation results indicate that the fabrication tolerance of our devices can reach 20 nm in etching depth and 10 nm in plane size changing. Benefit From the extensibility of our design method, we can design other types of ultra-compact 'focused' devices, like mode splitters, mode converters and power splitters, and we can also design devices with more complicated functionalities, for example, we have designed a three-channel focused wavelength demultiplexer.