Low-Crosstalk Fabrication-Insensitive Echelle Grating Demultiplexers on Silicon-on-Insulator

Author

Sciancalepore, Corrado ; Lycett, Richard John ; Dallery, Jacques A. ; Pauliac, Sebastien ; Hassan, Karim ; Harduin, Julie ; Duprez, Helene ; Weidenmueller, Ulf ; Gallagher, Dominic F. G. ; Menezo, Sylvie ; Ben Bakir, Badhise

Author_Institution

LETI, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France

Volume

27

Issue

5

fYear

2015

fDate

March1, 1 2015

Firstpage

494

Lastpage

497

Abstract

In this letter, we report about design, fabrication, and testing of echelle grating (EG) demultiplexers in the O-band (1.31-μm) for silicon-based photonic integrated circuits. In detail, flat band perfectly chirped EGs and two-point stigmatic EGs on the 300-nm thick silicon-on-insulator platform designed for 4 × 800-GHz spaced wavelength-division multiplexing featuring a low average crosstalk (-30 dB), a precise channel spacing, optimized interchannel uniformity (0.7 dB) and insertion losses (3-3.5 dB) are presented. Wafer-level statistical performance analysis shows the EG spectral response to be stable over the wafer in terms of crosstalk, channel spacing, and bandwidth with minimal wavelength dispersion (<;0.8 nm), thus highlighting the intrinsic robustness of high-order gratings and chosen fab pathways as well as the full reliability of 3-D vectorial modeling tools.

Keywords

demultiplexing equipment; diffraction gratings; integrated optics; optical communication equipment; optical crosstalk; optical design techniques; optical fabrication; optical losses; optical testing; silicon; silicon-on-insulator; space division multiplexing; statistical analysis; 3-D vectorial modeling tools; EG spectral response; O-band; bandwidth; echelle grating demultiplexer design; echelle grating demultiplexer fabrication; echelle grating demultiplexer testing; flat band perfectly chirped EG; high-order gratings; insertion losses; loss 3 dB to 3.5 dB; low average crosstalk; low-crosstalk fabrication-insensitive echelle grating demultiplexers; minimal wavelength dispersion; optimized interchannel uniformity; precise channel spacing; silicon-based photonic integrated circuits; silicon-on-insulator platform; size 300 nm; spaced wavelength-division multiplexing; two-point stigmatic EG; wafer-level statistical performance analysis; wavelength 1.31 mum; Arrayed waveguide gratings; Crosstalk; Diffraction gratings; Gratings; Insertion loss; Optical filters; Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS); and silicon photonics; echelle gratings (EGs); photonic integrated circuits (PICs); silicon photonics; silicon-on-insulator (SOI);

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2014.2377075

Filename

6975063