Design and fabrication of SOI-based photonic crystal components

We present examples of ultra-compact photonic crystal components realized in silicon-on-insulator material. We have fabricated several different types of photonic crystal waveguide components displaying high transmission features. This includes 60° and 120° bends, different types of couplers, and splitters. Recently, we have designed and fabricated components with more than 200 nm bandwidths. Design strategies to enhance the performance include systematic variation of design parameters using finite-difference time-domain simulations and inverse design methods such as topology optimization.