The Critical Adiabatic Linear Tapered Waveguide Combined with a Multimode Waveguide Coupler on an SOI Chip

A multimode waveguide interference (MMI) coupler is combined with a critical linear tapered waveguide on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) chip. When the TE0 mode is a critical adiabatic mode conversion from a single-mode waveguide to an extreme linear tapered waveguide combined with an MMI, this linear tapered waveguide is achieved to the maximum divergence angle (i.e., the shortest length). The maximum divergence angle is expressed by θ ≤ 2 tan−1[(0.35Wmmi − Ws)/(0.172Lmmi)] under a 1 × 1 MMI combined with this critical linear tapered waveguide. The expression formula is demonstrated by three different widths of a 1 × 1 MMI of 4 μm/8 μm/12 μm combined with the critical linear tapered waveguide. So, the maximum divergence angle is obtained at θ = 16°/14°/8°, with respect to this linear tapered waveguide loss of 0.022 dB/0.172 dB/0.158 dB, and this linear tapper length is reduced by 93.7%/92.9%/87.5% than the divergence angle θ = 1°. The output power of a 1 × 1 MMI combined with a critical linear tapered waveguide is enhanced at least 1.5 times under 0.95 above condition.

Single-Mode Tapered Vertical SU-8 Waveguide Fabricated by E-Beam Lithography for Analyte Sensing

In this paper, we propose a novel vertical SU-8 waveguide for evanescent analyte sensing. The waveguide is designed to possess a vertical and narrow structure to generate evanescent waves on both sides of the waveguide’s surface, aimed at increasing the sensitivity by enlarging the sensing areas. We performed simulations to monitor the influence of different parameters on the waveguide’s performance, including its height and width. E-beam lithography was used to fabricate the structure, as this one-step direct writing process enables easy, fast, and high-resolution fabrication. Furthermore, it reduces the sidewall roughness and decreases the induced scattering loss, which is a major source of waveguide loss. Couplers were added to improve the coupling efficiency and alignment tolerance, and will contribute to the feasibility of a plug-and-play optical system. Optical measurements show that the transmission loss is 1.03 ± 0.19 dB/cm. The absorption sensitivity was measured to be 4.8 dB per refractive index unit (dB/RIU) for saline solutions with various concentrations.

Fabrication and Characterization of Graphene Oxide Doped SU-8 Polymer Waveguide

In this paper, graphene oxide (GO) was doped into SU-8 polymer to examine the functionalities of polymer waveguide material via dopant inclusion. In material preparation, step by step processes starting from cyclopentanone mixing will be explained. It is shown that doped material's refractive index can be tailored by having different weight percentage of GO. Finally, a single mode ridge waveguide loss of GO doped SU-8 has been characterized to be 1.9 dB/cm at 1550 nm wavelength.

Feasibility of spoof surface plasmon waveguide enabled ultrathin room temperature THz GaN quantum cascade laser

We propose and study the feasibility of a THz GaN/AlGaN quantum cascade laser (QCL) consisting of only five periods with confinement provided by a spoof surface plasmon (SSP) waveguide for room temperature operation. The QCL design takes advantages of the large optical phonon energy and the ultrafast phonon scattering in GaN that allow for engineering favorable laser state lifetimes, and the SSP waveguide provides the optical confinement for the ultrathin QCL. Our analysis has shown that the waveguide loss is sufficiently low for the QCL to reach its threshold at the injection current density around 6 kA/cm2 at room temperature.