Four-Port Nanophotonic Frustrated Total Internal Reflection Coupler

Author

MacFarlane, Duncan L. ; Christensen, Marc P. ; Liu, Ke ; LaFave, Tim P., Jr. ; Evans, Gary A. ; Sultana, Nahid ; Kim, T.W. ; Kim, Jiyoung ; Kirk, Jay B. ; Huntoon, Nathan ; Stark, Andrew J. ; Dabkowski, Mieczyslaw ; Hunt, Louis R. ; Ramakrishna, Viswanath

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Univ. of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA

Volume

24

Issue

1

fYear

2012

Firstpage

58

Lastpage

60

Abstract

Four-port frustrated total internal reflection couplers in InP-based GalnAsP quantum-well substrates are realized and characterized. Each coupler forms an "X" at the perpendicular intersection of two ridge waveguides and is aligned 45° to the optical path. The 180-nm-wide couplers are fabricated by dry etching deep trenches through the quantum wells and backfilling with alumina (n = 1.71) by atomic layer deposition. Coupling coefficients for the fabricated coupler are in good agreement with a three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain theory, and an 82% coupler efficiency is estimated.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; atomic layer deposition; etching; finite difference time-domain analysis; gallium arsenide; gallium compounds; indium compounds; integrated optics; light reflection; nanophotonics; optical couplers; optical fabrication; optical waveguides; ridge waveguides; InP-GaInAsP; atomic layer deposition; backfilling; coupling coefficients; dry etching; four-port frustrated total internal reflection coupler; nanophotonics; quantum-well substrates; ridge waveguides; size 180 nm; three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain theory; Couplers; Indium phosphide; Optical coupling; Optical device fabrication; Optical reflection; Optical waveguides; Frustrated total internal reflection; integrated photonics; nanophotonics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2011.2172204

Filename

6046099