Highly Compact Integrated Optic Arc Bend Mode Converters

TL;DR

This paper introduces a highly compact, efficient, and broadband mode converter for silicon photonics that enables TE0 to TE1 mode conversion with minimal footprint, suitable for integrated optical circuits.

Contribution

It presents a novel arc bend waveguide design based on coupled-mode theory and FDTD simulations, achieving high efficiency and compactness for mode conversion.

Findings

Mode conversion efficiency of 98.65% (TE0 to TE1) and 99.1% (TE1 to TE0)

Device footprint of 10.5 μm by 2 μm

Broad bandwidth operation

Abstract

With the advances in on-chip photonic integrated circuits, compact and wide bandwidth mode converters are required for mode division multiplexing - demultiplexing and various other applications. We propose the design and theory for a highly compact, easy to fabricate mode converter that converts TE0 to TE1 and vice versa. The proposed design uses an arc bend waveguide structure based on Silicon on Insulator (SOI) platform and offers high mode conversion efficiency, low insertion loss, and large bandwidth of operation. We use coupled-mode theory to analyse the mode conversion within the structure, and FDTD simulations have been performed to verify the results. The mode conversion efficiency of 98.65% for TE0 to TE1 and 99.1% for TE1 to TE0 mode conversion with a device footprint of 10.5 um * 2 um is reported in this work.