Recently, Dr. Muhammad Shemyal Nisar, one of SBC engineering lecturers, published an article as the first author and corresponding author titled Polarization-insensitive 1D unidirectional compact grating coupler for the C-band using a 500 nm SOI in Applied Optics.
As the demand for telecommunications increases, the current network is fast reaching its maximum capacity. One of the ways to improve the capacity of Optical circuits is through the use of Polarization Insensitive Photonic components. While Polarization Insensitive components are desirable, the current standard Silicon Platforms only support single mode communication. To overcome this shortcoming of the standard Silicon platform, this paper introduces a 500 nm Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) platform for Polarization Insensitive Photonics.
Optical interconnects are arguably the most important component in a Photonic circuit as they enable the Photonic circuits to communicate with the external world. Grating Couplers are an important type of Optical interconnect that allow optical fiber to vertically couple with a Photonic Integrated Circuit. In light of the importance of the Grating Couplers as an optical interconnect, this paper designs a Grating Coupler for 500 nm SOI platform. The presented Grating Coupler shows Polarization dependent loss of 0.2 dB when used as a Polarization Insensitive Photonic component and Polarization dependent loss of 0.08 dB when used as a Polarization Flexible Photonic component. These results are the best reported results for the optical C-Band.
Relevant figures
Link to the paper: https://doi.org/10.1364/AO.467431
