The efficient generation of surface plasmons from free space optical waves is still an open problem in the field. Here we present a methodology and optimized design for a grating coupler. The photo-excitation of surface plasmons at an Ag-SiO2 interface is numerically demonstrated to yield greater than 50% coupling from a Gaussian beam into surface plasmon voltages and currents.
A numerical investigation of a two dimensional integrated fiber grating coupler capable of exciting several LP fiber modes in both TE and TM polarization is presented. Simulation results and an assessment of the numerical complexity of the 3D, fully vectorial finite element model of the device are shown.
We design a focusing grating coupler by a simultaneous apodization of the filling factor and the period. In addition to in plane focusing to the input waveguide providing a total length of less than 70μm, a further apodization of the curvature allows out of plane focusing into a fiber set 150μm away from the grating surface. The design is proposed for novel semiconductor on insulator waveguides such as GaInP. The coupling efficiency is calculated from two dimensional simulation which is about 45%.
To optimize the coupling efficiency of grating couplers, we extend an analytical model for the design of apodized grating couplers, taking into account the constraints on the upper and lower bounds of the scattering strength as determined by fabrication technology. We prove that our model gives the global optimum distribution of the scattering strength with the presence of such constraints. We apply our model to the standard problem of coupling from a silicon chip to a single-mode fiber, as well as more complex problems including the coupling to a vortex beam, and the design of a focusing grat…
We have designed a polarization-splitting grating coupler (PSGC) in silicon-oninsulator (SOI) that has 1.2 dB peak loss in numerical simulations, which is the best simulated performance of PSGCs without a bottom reflector to the best of our knowledge. Adjoint method-based shape optimization enables us to explore complex geometries that are intractable with conventional design approaches. Physics-based process-independent knowledge of PSGCs is extracted from the adjoint optimization and can be transferred to other platforms with a minimum of effort.
Vertical coupling using a diffraction grating is a convenient way to couple light into an optical waveguide. Several optimization approaches have been suggested in order to design such a coupler; however, most of them are implemented using algorithm based modelling. In this paper, we suggest an intuitive method based on S-matrix formalism for analytically optimize 3-port vertical grating coupler devices. The suggested method is general and can be applied to any 3-port coupler device in order to achieve an optimal design based on user constrains. The simplicity of the model allows reduction of …
We demonstrate monolithically defined grating couplers in $Z$-cut lithium niobate on insulator for efficient vertical coupling between an optical fiber and a single mode waveguide. The grating couplers exhibit $\sim 44.6\%$/coupler and $\sim 19.4\%$/coupler coupling efficiency for TE and TM polarized light respectively. Taperless grating couplers are investigated to realize a more compact design.
We present a one-port sensor based on a single diffraction grating delineated over a planar optical waveguide. Distinctly to previously reported devices, the grating here is used not only as I/O coupler, but also provides a built-in reference beam which is basically unaffected by the sensing process as manifested in changes of the effective refractive index of the waveguide. The sensing process causes two effects simultaneously: a change in the angle of the out-coupled beam and a change in the phase accumulated by that beam. Both changes can be determined by their conjunction with the referenc…
Reflection gratings enable light coupling to optical cavities without transmission through substrates. Gratings that have three ports and are mounted in second-order Littrow configuration even allow the coupling to high-finesse cavities using low diffraction efficiencies. In contrast to conventional transmissive cavity couplers, however, the phase of the diffracted light depends on the lateral position of the grating, which introduces an additional noise coupling. Here we experimentally demonstrate that this kind of noise cancels out once both diffracted output ports of the grating are combine…
Based on the space-time duality of light, we numerically demonstrate that temporal dispersion grating couplers can generate from a single pulse an array of replicas of equal amplitude. The phase-only profile of the temporal grating is optimized by a genetic algorithm that takes into account the optoelectronic bandwidth limitations of the setup.
We present a gradient-based algorithm to design general 1D grating couplers without any human input from start to finish, including a choice of initial condition. We show that we can reliably design efficient couplers to have multiple functionalities in different geometries, including conventional couplers for single-polarization and single-wavelength operation, polarization-insensitive couplers, and wavelength-demultiplexing couplers. In particular, we design a fiber-to-chip blazed grating with under 0.2 dB insertion loss that requires a single etch to fabricate and no back-reflector.
Recent experiments with film-coupled nanoparticles suggest that the impact of spatial dispersion is enhanced in plasmonic structures where high wavevector guided modes are excited. More advanced descriptions of the optical response of metals than Drude's are thus probably necessary in plasmonics. We show that even in classical prism coupler experiments, the plasmonic enhancement of spatial dispersion can be leveraged to make such experiments two orders of magnitude more sensitive. The realistic multilayered structures involved rely on layers that are thick enough to rule our any other phenomen…
We demonstrate a novel grating coupler design based on double asymmetric and vertically oriented waveguide scatterers to efficiently couple normally incident light to a fundamental mode silicon waveguide laying on a buried oxide layer.
A set of grating couplers that convert plane waves into odd pairs of plasmons supported by extremely thin layers of doped indium tin oxide is designed. The inverse design approach is implemented to improve the efficiency of ordinary periodical couplers significantly. The optimization code based on the gradient descent method and direct Maxwell solver is designed in Matlab. Three models with different optimization levels are compared and discussed. The results of calculations are prepared for subsequent experimental verification. Considered odd plasmonic pairs represent an example of high quali…
We study propagation and switching of slow-light pulses in nonlinear couplers with phase-shifted Bragg gratings. We demonstrate that power-controlled nonlinear self-action of light can be used to compensate dispersion-induced broadening of pulses through the formation of gap solitons, to control pulse switching in the coupler, and to tune the propagation velocity.
We demonstrate a kind of grating coupler that generates high quality flat-top beam with a small beamwidth from photonic integrated circuits into free-space. The grating coupler is designed on a silicon-on-insulator wafer with a 220 nm-thick silicon layer and consists of a dual-etch grating (DG) and a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR). By adjusting the structural parameters of DG and DBR, a pixel-level (6.6 um) flat-top beam with the vertical radiation of -0.5 dB and the mode match of 97% at 1550 nm is realized. Furthermore, a series of high-efficiency grating couplers are designed to create fl…
We report a comprehensive study on the performance of uniform and non-uniform based subwavelength grating couplers in Silicon-on-Insulator. The two performance metrics, coupling efficiency and bandwidth enhancement and trade-offs is presented. We also present, design parameters to achieve high-efficiency and broadband operation based on the detailed study of various loss mechanisms in the grating. Based on the detailed analysis subwavelength grating coupler designs with efficiency as high as 84 % with a 1 dB bandwidth of 50 nm and 98 % with a 44 nm 1 dB bandwidth is presented.
A concept for a low loss all-reflective cavity coupler is experimentally demonstrated at a wavelength of 1064 nm. A 1450 nm period dielectric reflection grating with a diffraction efficiency of 0.58 % in the -1st order is used in 2nd order Littrow configuration as a coupler to form a cavity with a finesse of 400. The application of such reflective low-loss cavity couplers in future generations of gravitational-wave detectors as well as some implementation issues are discussed.
A Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) perfectly vertical fibre-to-chip grating coupler is proposed and designed based on engineered subwavelength structures. The high directionality of the coupler is achieved by implementing step gratings to realize asymmetric diffraction and by applying effective index variation with auxiliary ultra-subwavelength gratings. The proposed structure is numerically analysed by using two-dimensional Finite Difference Time Domain (2D FDTD) method and achieves 76% (-1.19 dB) coupling efficiency and 39 nm 1-dB bandwidth.
In this paper, we utilize coupled mode theory (CMT) to model the coupling of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) between tri-layered corrugated thin films (CTF) structure coupler in the terahertz region. Employing the stimulated raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) quantum control technique, we propose a novel directional coupler based on SPPs evolution in tri-layered CTF in some curved configuration. Our calculated results show that the SPPs can be completely transferred from the input to the output CTF waveguides, and even we consider SPPs propagation loss, the transfer rate is still above 70%. Th…
Spoof surface plasmon (SSP) meta-couplers that efficiently integrate other diversified functionalities into a single ultrathin device are highly desirable in the modern microwave and terahertz fields. However, the diversified functionalities, to the best of our knowledge, have not been applied to circular polarization meta-couplers because of the spin coupling between the orthogonal incident waves. In this paper, we propose and numerically demonstrate a terahertz spin-decoupled bifunctional meta-coupler for SSP excitation and beam steering. The designed meta-coupler is composed of a coupling m…
While grating couplers have become the de-facto standard for optical access to integrated silicon photonics platforms, their performance at visible wavelengths, in moderate index contrast platforms like silicon nitride, leaves significant room for improvement. In particular, the index contrast governs the diffraction efficiency per grating tooth and the resulting overall coupler length. In this work, we develop two approaches to address this problem: a dielectric grating that sums multiple optical modes to increase the overall output intensity, and an embedded metal grating that enhances the a…
Efficient coupling between integrated optical waveguides and optical fibers is essential to the success of integrated photonics. While many solutions exist, perfectly vertical grating couplers which scatter light out of a waveguide in the direction normal to the waveguide's top surface are an ideal candidate due to their potential to reduce packaging complexity. Designing such couplers with high efficiency, however, has proven difficult. In this paper, we use electromagnetic inverse design techniques to optimize a high efficiency two-layer perfectly vertical silicon grating coupler. Our base d…
Nanophotonics has emerged as a powerful tool for manipulating light on chips. Almost all of today's devices, however, have been designed using slow and ineffective brute-force search methods, leading in many cases to limited device performance. In this article, we provide a complete demonstration of our recently proposed inverse design technique, wherein the user specifies design constraints in the form of target fields rather than a dielectric constant profile, and in particular we use this method to demonstrate a new demultiplexing grating. The novel grating, which has not been developed usi…
We present a way of exciting surface plasmon polaritons along non-patterned metallic surfaces by means of a flat squeezing slab designed with transformation optics. The slab changes the dispersion relation of incident light, enabling evanescent coupling to propagating surface plasmons. Unlike prism couplers, the proposed device does not introduce reflections at its input interface. Moreover, its compact geometry is suitable for integration. A feasible dielectric implementation of the coupler is suggested. Finally, we show that the angular response of the device can be engineered by using a non…
We investigate numerically and experimentally sheared 2D grating couplers in a photonic BiCMOS technology with a focus on their splitting behavior. Two realization forms of a waveguide-to-grating shear angle are considered. The cross-polarization used as a figure-of-merit is shown to be strongly dependent on the grating perturbation strength and is a crucial limitation not only for the grating splitting performance, but also for its coupling efficiency.
The ability of curved gratings as sectors of concentric circular gratings to couple linearly polarized light into focused surface plasmons is investigated by theory, simulation and experiment. Curved gratings, as sectors of concentric circular gratings with four different sector angles, are etched into a 30-nm thick gold layer on a glass coverslip and used to couple linearly-polarised free space light at nm into surface plasmons. The experimental and simulation results show that increasing the sector angle of the curved gratings decreases the lateral spotsize of the excited surface plasmons, r…
University of California, Berkeley（加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校）；Hewlett Packard Labs（惠普实验室）；Hewlett Packard Enterprise（慧与科技）；HPE Belgium（HPE比利时分部）
We present a proof-of-concept technique for the inverse design of electromagnetic devices motivated by the policy gradient method in reinforcement learning, named PHORCED (PHotonic Optimization using REINFORCE Criteria for Enhanced Design). This technique uses a probabilistic generative neural network interfaced with an electromagnetic solver to assist in the design of photonic devices, such as grating couplers. We show that PHORCED obtains better performing grating coupler designs than local gradient-based inverse design via the adjoint method, while potentially providing faster convergence o…
Lithium-Niobate-On-Insulator (LNOI) has emerged as a promising platform in the field of integrated photonics. Nonlinear optical processes and fast electro-optic modulation have been reported with outstanding performance in ultra-low loss waveguides. In order to harness the advantages offered by the LNOI technology, suitable fiber-to-chip interconnects operating at different wavelength ranges are demanded. Here we present easily manufacturable, self-imaging apodized grating couplers, featuring a coupling efficiency of the TE0 mode as high as $\simeq 47.1\%$ at $λ$=1550 nm and $\simeq 44.9\%$ at…
We experimentally demonstrate graphene-plasmon polariton excitation in a continuous graphene monolayer resting on a two-dimensional subwavelength silicon grating. The subwavelength silicon grating is fabricated by a nanosphere lithography technique with a self-assembled nanosphere array as a template. Measured transmission spectra illustrate the excitation of graphene-plasmon polaritons, which is further supported by numerical simulations and theoretical prediction of plasmonband diagrams. Our grating-assisted coupling to graphene-plasmon polaritons forms an important platform for graphene-bas…
We report the design, fabrication and characterization of a periodic grating of shallow rectangular grooves in a metallic film with the goal of maximizing the coupling efficiency of an extended plane wave (PW) of visible or near-infrared light into a single surface plasmon polariton (SPP) mode on a flat metal surface. A PW-to-SPP power conversion factor > 45 % is demonstrated at a wavelength of 780 nm, which exceeds by an order of magnitude the experimental performance of SPP grating couplers reported to date at any wavelength. Conversion efficiency is maximized by matching the dissipative SPP…
The surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) switch is the key element of the integrated devices in optical computation and terahertz (THz) communications. In this paper, we propose a novel design of THz SPPs switch based on quantum engineering. Due to the robustness of coherent quantum control technique, our switch is very robust against with perturbations of geometrical parameters and presents a good performance at on-state (and off-state) from 0.5 THz to 0.7 THz. The on-state and off-state of our device can be controlled by the external voltage. We believe this finding will be the great improvemen…
A highly sensitive refractive index sensor based on grating-assisted strip waveguide directional coupler is proposed. The sensor is designed using two coupled asymmetric strip waveguides with a top-loaded grating structure in one of the waveguides. Maximum light couples from one waveguide to the other at the resonance wavelength, and the change in resonance wavelength with the change in refractive index of the medium in the cover region is a measure of the sensitivity. The proposed sensor would be an on-chip device with a high refractive index sensitivity of ~ 104 nm/RIU, and negligible temper…
Plasmonic enhancement of nonlinear light-matter interaction can be achieved via dedicated optimization of resonant plasmonic modes that are spectrally matched to the different wavelengths involved in the particular nonlinear optical process. In this work, we investigate the generation and enhancement of broadband four-wave mixing (FWM) in a plasmonic azimuthally chirped grating (ACG). The azimuthally varying grating periodicity in an ACG offers a well-defined channel to mediate the near field and the far field over a broad range of wavelengths. However, the particular mechanism responsible for…
We report on polarization combining 2D grating couplers (2D GCs) on amorphous Si:H, fabricated in the backend of line of a photonic BiCMOS platform. The 2D GCs can be used as an interface of a hybrid silicon photonic coherent transmitter, which can be implemented on bulk Si wafers. The fabricated 2D GCs operate in the telecom C-band and show an experimental coupling efficiency of -5 dB with a wafer variation of +/-1.2 dB. Possibilities for efficiency enhancement and improved performance stability in future design generations are outlined and extension towards O-band devices is investigated as …
Resonance diffraction of THz HCN laser radiation on a semiconductor (InSb) grating is studied both experimentally and theoretically. The specular reflectivity suppression due to the resonance excitation of the THz surface plasmon-polariton is observed on a pure semiconductor grating and on semiconductor gratings covered with a thin striped layer of the residual photoresist. Presence of a thin dielectric layer on the grating surface leads to the shift and widening of the plasmon-polariton resonance. A simple analytical theory of the resonance diffraction on a shallow grating covered with a diel…
Optical I/O plays a crucial role in the lifespan of lab-on-a-chip systems, from preliminary testing to operation in the target environment. However, due to the precise alignments required, efficient and reliable fiber-to-chip connections remain challenging, yielding inconsistent test results and unstable packaged performance. To overcome this issue, for use in single mode on-chip systems, we propose the incorporation of area-enlarged grating couplers working in conjunction with multimode fibers. This combination enables simpler, faster, and more reliable connections than the traditional small …
We provide rigorous numerical calculations (using the rigorous coupled-wave analysis) of transmission spectra of various metallic and metamaterial one-dimensional gratings and identify plasmonic resonances responsible for enhanced transmission. We argue that the most important mechanism which influences the resonant transmission is the coupling of incident electromagnetic wave with two plasmonic waves: lengthwise plasmons, which propagates along the grating, and crosswise plasmons excited in air gaps.
By using a self-consistent Maxwell-Bloch method, we demonstrate the simultaneously lasing and spasing behavior in a simple metal grating-film nanostructure, which can be attributed to spatial hole burning and the gain competition of different modes at the band edge and in the plasmonic band gap. We show three modes: one spaser mode in gap with quality factor as high as 248.54, one plasmon lasing mode at band edge which emit vertically from the grating surface, and the other plasmon lasing mode at band edge which is suppressed by the spaser mode. This method may find significant applications in…
Polaritons can provide strong optical field enhancement allowing to boost light-matter interaction. Here, we experimentally observe enhancement of mid-infrared second-harmonic generation (SHG) using grating-coupled surface phonon polaritons of the 6H-SiC surface. In our experiment, we measure the SHG along the polariton dispersion by changing the incidence angle of the excitation beam. We observe hybridization between the propagating surface phonon polaritons and localized plasmon resonances in the gold grating, evidenced by the modification of the polariton dispersion as we change the area ra…
Most recently, two remarkable papers [New J. Phys. 21, 113004 (2019); IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron 27, 1 (2020)] propose broadband complete transfer terahertz (THz) surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) waveguide coupler by applying coherent quantum control -- Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). However, previous researches request three SPPs waveguides coupler. In this paper, we propose a new design of a broadband complete transfer THz SPPs coupler with an innovative structure of two waveguides by employing two state adiabatic following. In order to realize this design, we introduc…
