We study the transmission properties for the waveguide bends composed by a circular photonic crystal. Two types (Y and U type) of the waveguide bends utilizing the circular photonic crystal are studied. It has been shown, compared with the conventional photonic crystal waveguide bends, transmission properties for these bends can be significantly improved. Over a 6.4% bandwidth, less than 1-dB loss/bend are observed. U bent waveguide, i.e., $180^o$ bend, can be easily realized with low loss using the circular photonic crystal.
The paper proposes a method to characterize the bend discontinuity for plasmonic and spoof plasmonic waveguides in terms of scattering parameters. By means of this method, the waveguide is modelled by a two-port network and its scattering parameters are extracted. The parameters for the L-shaped sharp curved bends at different frequencies and under different bending angles are determined.
In this work we present a detailed analysis of individual loss mechanisms in silicon nitride partial Euler bends at a wavelength of 850 nm. This structure optimizes the transmission through small radii optical waveguide bends. The partial Euler bend geometry balances losses arising from the transition from the straight to the bend waveguide mode, and radiative losses of the bend waveguide mode. Numerical analyses are presented for 45-degree bends commonly employed in S-bend configurations to create lateral offsets, as well as 90- and 180-degree bends. Additionally, 90-degree partial Euler bend…
The spectral dependence of a bending loss of cascaded 60-degree bends in photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides is explored in a slab-type silicon-on-insulator system. Ultra-low bending loss of (0.05+/-0.03)dB/bend is measured at wavelengths corresponding to the nearly dispersionless transmission regime. In contrast, the PhC bend is found to become completely opaque for wavelengths range corresponding to the slow light regime. A general strategy is presented and experimentally verified to optimize the bend design for improved slow light transmission.
We present a novel method to fabricate low bend loss femtosecond-laser written waveguides that exploits the differential thermal stabilities of laser induced refractive index modifications. The technique consists of a two-step process; the first involves fabricating large multimode waveguides, while the second step consists of a thermal post-annealing process, which erases the outer ring of the refractive index profile, enabling single mode operation in the C-band. By using this procedure we report waveguides with sharp bends (down to 16.6 mm radius) and high (80%) normalized throughputs. This…
Waveguides composed of electromagnetically-coupled optical microcavities (coupled resonator optical waveguides or CROWs) can be used for light guiding, slowing and storage. In this paper, we present a two-dimensional analysis of finite-size straight and curved CROW sections based on a rigorous Muller boundary integral equations method. We study mechanisms of the coupling of whispering gallery (WG) modes and guiding light around bends in CROWs composed of both identical and size-mismatched microdisk resonators. Our accurate analysis reveals differences in WG modes coupling in the vicinity of be…
Even though submicron silicon waveguides have been proposed for dense integration of photonic devices, to date the lightwave circuits on the market mainly rely on waveguides with micron-scale core dimensions. These larger waveguides feature easier fabrication, higher reliability and better interfacing to optical fibres. Single-mode operation with large core dimensions is obtained with low lateral refractive index contrast. Hence, the main limitation in increasing the level of integration and in reducing the cost of micron-scale waveguide circuits is their mm- to cm-scale minimum bending radius…
The quest for practical waveguides operating in the terahertz range faces two major hurdles: large losses and high rigidity. While recent years have been marked by remarkable progress in lowering the impact of material losses using hollow-core guidance, such waveguides are typically not flexible. Here we experimentally and numerically investigate antiresonant dielectric waveguides made of polyurethane, a commonly used dielectric with a low Young's modulus. The hollow-core nature of antiresonant fibers leads to low transmission losses using simple structures, whereas the low Young's modulus of …
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 with conventional SOI waveguide with the thicker guiding layer. While various bending mechanisms have been utilized to reduce the bending loss of conventional SOI wave…
Low-index contrast waveguides such as silica waveguides are indispensable part of passive integrated optical components. Reducing the bending radius of silica waveguides with low bend loss is vital in miniaturizing silica planar lightwave circuits. The Eaton lens is a gradient index lens that can bend parallel light rays by 90°, 180°, or 360°. We present a low-loss and compact 90° waveguide bend with a radius of 9 $μ$m designed by truncating the Eaton lens. The performance of the designed bend, implemented by graded photonic crystal, was evaluated by full-wave two-dimensional finite element me…
Reducing the bending radius of low-index contrast waveguides is essential in reducing the size of the integrated optical components. A polymeric multimode waveguide bend is presented based on the Eaton lens. The ray-tracing calculations are utilized to truncate the Eaton lens in order to improve the performance of the bend. The truncation of the lens decreases the footprint of the bend as well. The designed waveguide bend with a radius of 18.4 $μm$ is implemented by concentric cylindrical multilayer structure. The average bend losses of 0.69 and 0.87 dB are achieved for the $TM_0$ and $TM_1$ m…
We investigate the performance of bends and splitters in graphene nanoribbon waveguides. Although the graphene waveguides are lossy themselves, we show that bends and splitters do not induce any additional loss provided that the nanoribbon width is sub-wavelength. We use transmission line theory to qualitatively interpret the behavior observed in our simulation. Our results pave a promising way to realize ultra-compact devices operating in the terahertz region.
A widespread, intuitive and computationally inexpensive method to analyze light guidance through waveguide bends is by introducing an equivalent straight waveguide with refractive index profile modified to account for actual waveguide bend. Here we revise the commonly used equivalent-index formula, ending up with its simple extension that enables rigorous treatment of one- and two-dimensionally confined, uniformly bent waveguides, including tightly coiled microstructure fibers, curved ridge waveguides and ring microresonators. We also show that such technique is applicable only to waveguides c…
In this work, a plasmonic right-angled waveguide bend and divider are proposed. Using the Transformation Optics (TO) approach the transformation media of a bend and a T-shaped divider are obtained. Such media with continuous refractive index are realized with the help of graphene in the terahertz frequency range, key to effectively guiding the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) propagation on the 90 degree curves. Components with such capability are promising for THz device applications.
Mode-division-multiplexing (MDM) is attractive as a means to increase the link capacity of a single wavelength for optical interconnects via the use of multiple mode-channels in multimode bus waveguide.In order to route the data in MDM systems, waveguide bends are typically needed.In particular, ultra-sharp bends are desirable for reducing the chip area occupied by high-density photonic intergrated circuits (PICs). In this work, we propose and demonstrate a novel meta-surfaced waveguide structure on silicon, which enables ultral-sharp multimode waveguide bends to have low loss and low crosstal…
We find the one-way mode can be well-confined at the magnetic domain wall by the photonic bandgap of gyromagnetic bulk material. Utilizing the well-confined one-way mode at the domain wall, we demonstrate the photonic one-way waveguide, splitter and bender can be realized with simple structures, which are predicted to be high-efficiency, broadband, frequency-independent, reflection-free, crosstalk-proof and robustness against disorder. Additionally, we find that the splitter and bender in our proposal can be transformed into each other with magnetic control, which may have great potential appl…
This paper investigates the propagation characteristics of circular waveguides whose interior surface is coated with a thin metamaterial liner possessing dispersive, negative, and near-zero permittivity. A field analysis of this system produces the dispersion of complex modes, and reveals in detail intriguing phenomena such as backward-wave propagation below the unlined waveguide's fundamental-mode cutoff, resonant tunneling of power, field collimation, and miniaturization. It is shown how the waveguide geometry and metamaterial parameters may be selected to engineer the lined waveguide's spec…
We demonstrate the existence of a special degeneracy condition, called degenerate band edge (DBE), between two Bloch modes in periodically loaded circular all-metallic waveguides at microwave frequencies. The DBE condition has been associated with a dramatic reduction in group velocity and with some unique resonance properties, but it has not been shown in hollow waveguide structures yet. Hence, we show here its existence in two periodic waveguide examples. The unit cell of the first case is composed of a circular waveguide loaded with two inner cylinders with elliptical irises with misaligned…
The fundamental guided electromagnetic dispersion characteristics in lossless dispersive metamaterial clad circular air hole waveguides are investigated. Two operating guided modes are found to exist: circular waveguide and surface plasmon polariton modes that support fast and slow waves, respectively. Hybrid mode classifications are also made in an empirical manner so that the guided modes can be sorted into either TM-like or TE-like modes in terms of their unique dispersion characteristics. Unusual dispersion characteristics, including multi-valued propagation constants at a single frequency…
In this paper we report suspended silicon waveguides operating at a wavelength of 7.67 mm with a propagation loss of 3.1 ? 0.3 dB/cm. To our knowledge this is the first demonstration of low loss silicon waveguides at such a long wavelength, with loss comparable to other platforms that use more exotic materials. The suspended Si waveguide core is supported by a subwavelength grating that provides lateral optical confinement, while also allowing access to the buried oxide layer so that it can be wet etched using hydrofluoric acid. We also demonstrate low loss waveguide bends and s-bends.
A splitting of modes in a circular graded-index optical fiber is demonstrated by solving the full Maxwell equations using the perturbation analysis. It is shown that the degeneracy of vortex Laguerre-Gauss modes with distinct orbital angular momentum (OAM) and polarization (spin) but the same total angular momentum is lifted due to the spin-orbit (vector) and tensor forces. Numerical estimations of group delays of modes in optical fiber and frequency splitting in Fabry-Perot and ring resonators are presented.
Optical second-harmonic generation (SHG) is studied for the confined geometry of a circular cylindrical waveguide or optical fiber. A model situation of high symmetry is considered where the material with nonlinear susceptibility is isotropic and distributed in radially symmetric manner about the axis. In addition it is assumed that the material of high second-order nonlinearity consists of a thin circular layer, with periodic variation in the axial direction - similar to a usual quasi-phasematched configuration. One can optimize the efficiency of SHG by choosing the period of the array such t…
This work presents the radiation performance of open-ended circular-waveguide probe antennas that have been miniaturized by the introduction of thin metamaterial liners. The liners introduce an HE$_{11}$ mode well below the natural cutoff frequency, which provides substantial gain improvements over a similarly sized waveguide probe. A new feeding arrangement employing a shielded-loop source embedded inside the miniaturized waveguide is developed to efficiently excite the HE$_{11}$ mode and avoid the excitation of other modes across the frequency reduced band while maintaining the antenna's com…
The study of metallic corrugated surfaces has recently received strong attention due to their ability to mimic the behaviour of surface plasmons. In this work, this plasmon-like behaviour is employed to design an open cylindrical waveguide. The structure consists on a longitudinally corrugated metallic cylinder with corrugations filled with a dielectric material. The dispersion relation of this waveguide is analyzed in the Òcontinuous limitÓ, defined as the limit in which the number of corrugations is infinite, but keeping their periodicity constant. It is found that, in this limit, the wavegu…
Smooth-Curvature Bend Design Guided by Variational Analysis for Adiabatic Multimode Integrated Photonics
Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学武汉国家光电研究中心）；School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology（华中科技大学光学与电子信息学院）；Optics Valley Laboratory（光谷实验室）
We investigate nonlinear one- and two-dimensional photonic crystals by applying a finite element-iterative method.Numerical results show the essential influence of nonlinear elements embedded into a quarter-wave stack and the sharp photonic crystal waveguide bend on the spectral characteristics of these structures. We compare our results with those obtained in [21] from the discrete equation method for the case of a sharp waveguide bend. The comparison shows that neglecting the nonuniform field distribution inside the embedded nonlinear elements leads to overestimation of the waveguide bend tr…
A novel type of dual circular polarizer is developed to convert the TE10 mode into two different polarization TE11 modes in a circular waveguide. This design consists two major parts: a TE10 to TE10/TE20 converter and an overmoded TE10/TE20 to circular TE11 modes converter.
We propose that a photonic array of resonant circular dielectric waveguides with subwavelength grating can be designed as a robust and sensitive topological chemical sensor. The device can detect trace amounts of a given chemical species through photonic edge modes that are impervious to most sources of disorder. We perform a simulation in the mid-infrared that accounts for the absorption loss introduced by chemical molecules in contact with a strongly coupled photonic lattice of resonators. Due to the topological nature of the device, its chemical sensitivity scales linearly with the system s…
This paper presents experimental verification of below-cutoff transmission through miniaturized waveguides whose interior is coated with a thin anisotropic metamaterial liner possessing epsilon-negative and near-zero (ENNZ) properties. These liners are realized using a simple, printed-circuit implementation based on inductively loaded wires, and introduce an HE$_{11}$ mode well below the natural cutoff frequency. The inclusion of the liner is shown to substantially improve the transmission between two embedded shielded-loop sources. A homogenization scheme is developed to characterize the line…
Circularly polarized light plays a key role in many applications including spectroscopy, microscopy, and control of atomic systems. Particularly in the latter, high polarization purity is often required. Integrated technologies for atomic control are progressing rapidly, but while integrated photonics can generate fields with pure linear polarization, integrated generation of highly pure circular polarization states has not been addressed. Here, we show that waveguide microring resonators, perturbed with azimuthal gratings and thereby emitting beams carrying optical orbital angular momentum, c…
A Fabry-Perot like interferometer with two microwaveguide adaptors as reflectors creates a passive dielectric medium with a negative group delay time due to polarization shift. A rotational strain of the polarization vector by one of the adaptors is coupled with a drastic negative group velocity. The adapted rectangular and circular waveguides have the same dispersion. The input rectangular waveguide mode is linearly polarized, whereas the basic mode of the adapted circular waveguide is circularly polarized. A 667 wavelengths long circular waveguide connects the input with the output adaptor. …
We present a semianalytical method to obtain perfect transmission across abrupt H-plane bends in single-mode rectangular waveguides using a single passive polarizable element (scatterer). The underlying analysis and synthesis schemes are inspired by the rapidly-growing research on metagratings, typically used to manipulate wave trajectories in free-space. These sparse configurations of subwavelength polarizable particles (meta-atoms) are designed by careful tailoring of inter-element near-field and far-field interactions, relying on analytical models to resolve the required meta-atom distribut…
A chirality-based approach to making a one-way waveguide that can be used as an optical isolator or a polarizer is described. The waveguide is rectangular, and chirality is introduced by making slanted rectangular grooves on the waveguide walls. Chirality of the waveguide manifests as a strong circular dichroism, and is responsible for transmitting one circular polarization of light and reflecting the other. Optical isolation of the propagating circular polarization is accomplished when the chiral waveguide is placed in front of a non-chiral optical device. Even the crudest implementations of …
We experimentally demonstrate a type of waveguiding mechanism for coupled surface-wave defect modes in a surface-wave photonic crystal. Unlike conventional spoof surface plasmon waveguides, waveguiding of coupled surface-wave defect modes is achieved through weak coupling between tightly localized defect cavities in an otherwise gapped surface-wave photonic crystal, as a classical wave analogue of tight-binding electronic wavefunctions in solid state lattices.
The number of waveguides crossing an intersection increases with the development of complex photonic integrated circuits. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate that Maxwell's fish-eye (MFE) lens can be used as a multiband crossing medium. In previous designs of waveguide intersection, bends are needed before and after the intersection to adjust the crossing angle resulting in a larger footprint. The presented design incorporates the waveguide bends into the intersection which saves footprint. In this paper, 4x4 and 6x6 intersections based on ideal and graded photonic crystal (GPC)…
The ability to navigate light signals in two-dimensional networks of waveguide arrays is a prerequisite for the development of all-optical integrated circuits for information processing and networking. In this article, we present a theoretical analysis of bending losses in linear photonic lattices with engineered couplings, and discuss possible ways for their minimization. In contrast to previous work in the field, the lattices under consideration operate in the linear regime, in the sense that discrete solitons cannot exist. The present results suggest that the functionality of linear wavegui…
We propose a design of two-dimensional bi-anisotropic meta-waveguide exhibiting topologically nontrivial photonic phase and robust photonic transport. The structure proposed represents a waveguide formed by a periodic array of metallic cylinders placed inside parallel metal plates and is designed to support two pairs of Dirac cones thus allowing emulation of the spin of the electrons in condensed matter systems. It is shown, that by making the meta-waveguide bi-anisotropic one can mimic the spin-orbital interaction in topological insulators and open a complete photonic topological band gap. Fi…
The absolute instruments like the Maxwell's fisheye (MFE) lens with aberration-free imaging properties have found interesting applications such as waveguide crossing. The flat wavefront of an optical wave in the waveguide does not match with the circular wavefront of the circular MFE lens at its edge, hence, we design and study the performance of a square MFE lens as photonic crystal waveguide crossing medium. We also have truncated the square MFE lens to a cross-shaped lens to squeeze it inside the crossing waveguides, therefore, practically no extra footprint is consumed by the truncated MFE…
Robust multichannel bulk transport in a time-reversal-invariant insulator-free photonic waveguide array
Wuhan Textile University（武汉纺织大学）；Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学）；Shantou University（汕头大学）；Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen)（哈尔滨工业大学（深圳））
Dielectric optical waveguides constitute the main building blocks of photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Channels with high refractive index contrast can provide very compact PIC components whereas structures with lower index exhibit less propagation loss. A hybrid concept that can combine the best of high- and low-index materials is highly required. Here, we devise a new approach to realize compact and low-loss hybrid optical waveguides based on the interaction of weak optical modes. This is a rather universal approach that can be applied to a wide range of optical materials. To prove the pr…
Ultra-high-Q resonators are fundamentally important to optics and microwave photonics. Up to now, it is still very challenging to boost the Q factor while maintaining a compact size for a resonator. Herein, we proposed and demonstrated an ultra-high-Q silicon-nitride (Si3N4) racetrack resonator with uniform multi-mode Si3N4 photonic waveguides. It consists of two multi-mode straight waveguides connected by two multi-mode waveguide bends (MWBs). In particular, the MWBs are based on modified Euler curves, and a multi-mode straight waveguide directional coupler is used for the fundamental mode co…
We analyze the impact of geometrical parameters on such important optical characteristics of negative curvature hollow-core fibers (NCHCFs) as waveguide dispersion, waveguide losses and the structure of transmission bands. We consider both theoretically and experimentally the resonance effects and formation of band edges under bending in NCHCFs.
The light transmission through a dispersive plasmonic circular hole is numerically investigated with an emphasis on its subwavelength guidance. For a better understanding of the effect of the hole diameter on the guided dispersion characteristics, the guided modes, including both the surface plasmon polariton mode and the circular waveguide mode, are studied for several hole diameters, especially when the metal cladding has a plasmonic frequency dependency. A brief comparison is also made with the guided dispersion characteristics of a dispersive plasmonic gap [K. Y. Kim, et al., Opt. Express …
In this work the behavior of optical micro-ring resonators, especially when functioning as refractive index sensors, is studied in detail. Two configurations are considered, namely a linear waveguide coupled to a circular one and two linear waveguides coupled to each other through a circular one. The optimum coupling conditions are derived and it is shown that in both cases the condition for the resonant wavelength, i.e. the wavelength at which the transmission spectrum exhibits a dip (peak), is the same and depends only on the geometrical characteristics of the circular waveguide and the effe…
We suggest a novel conceptual approach for describing the properties of waveguides and circuits in photonic crystals, based on the effective discrete equations that include the long-range interaction effects. We demonstrate, on the example of sharp waveguide bends, that our approach is very effective and accurate for the study of bound states and transmission spectra of the photonic-crystal circuits, and disclose the importance of evanescent modes in their properties.
We describe a hybrid lithium niobate (LN) / silicon (Si) optical waveguiding platform at near infrared wavelengths. Various optical circuit elements, such as waveguides, bends, and couplers are demonstrated in two hybrid cross sections, A and B, with different LN confinement factors (32% and 90%, respectively) of the fundamental quasi TE mode. Such a large LN confinement factor is achieved with adiabatic tapers that preserve the symmetry of the fundamental quasi TE mode and prevent mode rotation. We find the average propagation loss in cross section B to be 4.3 dB/cm with a standard deviation …
