Ultra-thin silicon-on-insulator waveguide bend based on truncated Eaton lens implemented by varying the guiding layer thickness

Abstract

Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguides with different geometries have been employed to design various integrated optical components. Reducing the bending radius of the SOI waveguides with low bending loss is essential in minimizing the footprint of light-wave circuits. The propagating mode is less confined in the core of the ultra-thin SOI waveguide and penetrates to substrate and cladding, leading to higher bending loss compared to conventional SOI waveguides with a thicker guiding layer. Although various bending mechanisms have been utilized to reduce the bending loss of conventional SOI waveguides, the ultra-thin SOI waveguide bends have not been studied in detail. In this paper, we present a 60-nm-thick SOI waveguide bend based on the truncated Eaton lens implemented by varying thickness of the guiding layer. The three-dimensional full-wave simulations reveal that the designed waveguide bend, with a radius of 3.9 μm, reduces the bending loss from 3.3 to 0.42 dB at the wavelength of 1550 nm. Moreover, the bending loss for the wavelength range of 1260–1675 nm is lower than 0.67 dB while the bending loss in the C-band is lower than 0.45 dB.