Ultrawide-bandwidth on-chip spectrometer design using band-pass filters

Abstract

Here, we present the design and simulation of an ultrawide-bandwidth on-chip spectrometer that can be used in various applications, e.g. spectral tissue sensing. It covers 1200 nm wavelength range (400 nm-1600 nm) with 2 nm spectral resolution. The overall design size is only 3 × 3 cm2. The ultra-wide spectral range is made possible by using novel on-chip band-pass filters for the coarse wavelength division. The fine resolution is provided by the arrayed waveguide gratings. The band-pass filter is formed by using bend waveguides and adiabatic full-couplers. The additional loss caused by the band-pass filter is relatively small. The proposed spectrometer covers entire 400 nm-1600 nm range continuously with low crosstalk values. We envision that this design can be used in several different applications including food safety, agriculture, industrial inspection, optical imaging, and biomedical research.