High efficiency, small size, and large bandwidth vertical interlayer waveguide coupler

Abstract

Since the advent of three-dimensional photonic integrated circuits, the realization of efficient and compact optical interconnection between layers has become an important development direction. A vertical interlayer coupler between two silicon layers is presented in this paper. The coupling principle of the directional coupler is analyzed, and the traditional method of using a pair of vertically overlapping inverse taper structures is improved. For the coupling of two rectangular waveguide layers, a pair of nonlinear tapers with offset along the transmission direction is demonstrated. For the coupling of two ridge waveguide layers, a nonlinear taper in each layer is used to achieve high coupling efficiency. The simulation results show that the coupling efficiency of the two structures can reach more than 90% in a wavelength range from 1500 nm to 1650 nm. Moreover, the crosstalk is reduced to less than –50 dB by using multimode waveguides at intersections. The vertical interlayer coupler with a nonlinear taper is expected to realize the miniaturization and dense integration of photonic integrated chips.