Integrated Gires-Tournois interferometers based on evanescently coupled ridge resonators.

Abstract

We propose integrated Gires-Tournois interferometers (GTIs) for guided modes of dielectric slab waveguides. The proposed GTIs consist of one or several dielectric ridge resonators separated by subwavelength-width grooves patterned into an abruptly terminated slab waveguide and operate at oblique incidence of the fundamental transverse-electric-polarized mode. The grooves act as partially reflective mirrors, whereas the end facet of the last ridge works in the total internal reflection regime and reflects all the incident radiation. We show that the single-ridge structure provides a nonlinear staircase-like phase response characteristic for GTIs. By using several properly arranged ridges, one can engineer group delay or group delay dispersion in a required spectral range. As an example, we design a three-ridge GTI providing an almost constant group delay dispersion in a 50-nm-wide wavelength range. The proposed planar GTIs may find application in integrated optical circuits for introducing or compensating for chromatic dispersion.