Abstract
A multimode silicon photonic integrated circuit (PIC) comprising a pair of on-chip mode (de)multiplexers with 10-mode channels and a multimode bus waveguide with sharp bends is demonstrated to enable multi-channel on-chip transmissions. The core width of the multimode bus waveguide is chosen such that it can support 10 guided modes, of which there are four transverse-magnetic polarization modes and six transverse-electric polarization modes. This multimode bus waveguide comprises sharp bends based on modified Euler curves. Experimental results demonstrate that the present silicon PIC enables the 10-channel on-chip transmission with a low inter-mode crosstalk of approximately −20 dB over a broad bandwidth of 1520–1610 nm even when the bending radius of the S-bend is as small as 40 µm. Compared with a silicon PIC using a conventional arc-bend with the same bending radius, our proposed PIC demonstrates a significant improvement.
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Project supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 61725503), the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (No. LZ18F050001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61431166001 and 1171101320), and the National Major Research and Development Program, China (No. 2016YFB0402502)
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Li, Cl., Jiang, Xh., Hsu, Y. et al. Ten-channel mode-division-multiplexed silicon photonic integrated circuit with sharp bends. Frontiers Inf Technol Electronic Eng 20, 498–506 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1800386
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1800386