Integrated polymer waveguide mode size transformer with a vertical taper for improved fiber coupling

Antao Chen; Vadim Chuyanov; Felix Ignacio Marti-Carrera; Sean M. Garner; William H. Steier; Jinghong Chen; Sam-Shajing Sun; Larry Raymond Dalton

doi:10.1117/12.271074

4 April 1997 Integrated polymer waveguide mode size transformer with a vertical taper for improved fiber coupling

Antao Chen, Vadim Chuyanov, Felix Ignacio Marti-Carrera, Sean M. Garner, William H. Steier, Jinghong Chen, Sam-Shajing Sun, Larry Raymond Dalton

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 3005, Optoelectronic Interconnects and Packaging IV; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.271074
Event: Photonics West '97, 1997, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

We describe a novel vertical taper structure fabricated at the ends of polymer optical waveguide devices to improve the coupling between channel waveguides and single-m,ode fibers. The taper smoothly converts a highly elliptical waveguide mode into a bigger and more circular mode for low loss coupling and relaxed fiber alignment tolerances. A vertical taper 0.5-2 mm in length is made in the low index upper cladding to reduce its thickness from several micrometers to zero, followed by the coating of a second upper cladding with index higher than that of the previous upper cladding but slightly lower than that of waveguide core. In the taper, the channel waveguide mode gradually loses confinement by the upper cladding so that the mode size grows bigger a light propagates, whereas the confinement by the lower cladding and lateral confinement are hardly affected. The waveguide mode grows in the vertical direction away from the lossy ground electrode and substrate; therefore no compromise between mode size and propagation loss is involved. Two special but simple reactive ion etching techniques, shadow masked etching and tapered photoresist etching mask, are develop for making this vertical taper. Mode expansion and a 1.8 dB reduction in coupling los, which is not sensitive to waveguide width and polarization, is obtained in our preliminary experiment.

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Antao Chen, Vadim Chuyanov, Felix Ignacio Marti-Carrera, Sean M. Garner, William H. Steier, Jinghong Chen, Sam-Shajing Sun, and Larry Raymond Dalton "Integrated polymer waveguide mode size transformer with a vertical taper for improved fiber coupling", Proc. SPIE 3005, Optoelectronic Interconnects and Packaging IV, (4 April 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.271074

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