SWG-designed MMI waveguides for dual and multi-beam splitting, beam position-shifting, and focusing purposes

Abstract

In this research, subwavelength grating (SWG) nanostructures with different periodic configurations are designed on a slab dielectric waveguide and theoretically studied for creating beam splitting, position-shifting, and focusing effects, using Comsol Multiphysics as the simulation tool. Su8 with a refractive index (n) of 1.585 is considered as the core material for the dielectric waveguide, which has a lateral and longitudinal dimension of 3 and 6 um, respectively. Uniform and nonuniform rows and columns of nanoholes with diameters of 90 nm are considered as the diffractive design elements. We took advantage of the multimode interference (MMI) phenomenon caused by periodic arrays of nanoholes as SWG structures, which are engineered to induce the desired effects. The power transmission efficiencies of the SWG-designed MMI waveguides are calculated in the wavelength range of 500-1200 nm. The efficiencies are high for the major part of the studied spectrum and reach a maximum of ~97% at 1200 nm for some designs. Also, the refractive index contrasts between the effective index (n eff ) and the ideal parabolic model (n par ) are shown for the conventional MMI SU8 waveguide within a wavelength range of 700-1000 nm. It can be clearly seen that the contrast is minimum for λ = 700nm, and increases with wavelength, showing the multimode interference effect is optimum at 700 nm and deteriorates as the wavelength increases. Modal phase error (MPE) estimated for m=5 and different wavelengths revealed that the MMI device can have a fairly high performance within the whole studied wavelength range for a maximum mode number of 3. Additionally, the field intensity distributions calculated for the design with the beam splitting effect for different wavelengths reflected that the effect has a broadband characteristic.