Design of a compact crossing for silicon-based slot and strip waveguides

Abstract

A compact crossing for silicon-based slot and strip waveguides is proposed by utilizing a strip-multimode waveguide (SMW) crossing at the center and two logarithmically tapered slot-to-strip mode converters at the ports with slot waveguides. For input/output ports with slot waveguides, the guided modes are efficiently transformed through the mode converter and then enter into the SMW (without mode converters for those ports with strip waveguides), where the fields converge at the center of the intersection due to the self-imaging effect. Hence, the size of the input beam is much smaller than the width of the SMW at the crossing center, leading to significant reductions of the crosstalk and radiation loss. The numerical results show that a hybrid waveguide crossing operating at the wavelength of 1.55 μm with the insertion loss, crosstalk, and reflection of 0.14/0.164 , −35.88/−38.79, and −35.35/−40.5 dB for input ports with slot/strip waveguides, respectively, is achieved. Moreover, the fabrication tolerances to the structural parameters are investigated by using a finite-difference time-domain method and evolution of the injected field along the propagation distance through the crossing structure is also demonstrated.