Abstract
This paper presents an overview of lateral leakage in silicon photonics due to polarization coupling between the guided mode of a ridge waveguide and unguided slab mode in the etched cladding. We explain the physical origins and provide insight into how this effect can be suppressed or harnessed. We show how lateral leakage can manifest as new resonant behaviour and explore this effect in the context of bound states in the continuum. We review a number of applications for devices based on lateral leakage and present outlook for a new generation of polarization manipulators, antennas and filters.
Highlights
S ILICON photonics has been commonly accepted as the key technology for low cost, mass manufacturable and high density photonic integrated circuits (PICs)
A polarizer based on lateral leakage loss phenomenon can be very compact, insensitive to dimensional variation, broad band and insensitive to temperature variation as compared to polarizers based on other techniques such as anti-resonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW)’s [36], [37], metal-cladding waveguides [38]–[40], lithium niobate waveguides [41], or liquid crystals [42]
We have presented an overview of the lateral leakage effect in silicon photonic ridge waveguides
Summary
S ILICON photonics has been commonly accepted as the key technology for low cost, mass manufacturable and high density photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Lateral leakage is an often overlooked effect that can occur in a waveguide that is made in high index contrast film (e.g. silicon) using a shallowly etched ridge. In such a configuration it is possible for the guided mode in the ridge to couple to Manuscript received June 3, 2019; revised July 26, 2019; accepted August 6, 2019. It was observed that for some specific waveguide geometries shallowly etched SOI waveguides could support very low loss TM mode propagation This was attributed to the resonant cancellation of lateral leakage, an effect that was predicted and observed earlier in rib waveguides at millimeter-wave frequency [4], [5]. That this holds great promise for a new generation of integrated wavelength filters and as a platform for exploration of the physics of BICs and other related physical phenomena
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