This paper describes a fabrication process for realizing Indium-Phosphide-based photonic-integrated circuits (PICs) with a high level of integration to target a wide variety of optical applications. To show the diversity in PICs achievable with our open-access foundry process, we illustrate two examples: a fully-integrated 20 Gb/s dual-polarization electro-absorption-modulated laser, and a balanced detector composed of avalanche photodiodes for detection of 28 Gb/s optical signals. On another note, datacenters are increasingly relying on hybrid integration of PICs from different technology platforms to increase transmission capacity, while simultaneously lowering cost, size, and power consumption. Several technology platforms require surface coupling rather than the traditional edge coupling to couple the light from one PIC to another. To accommodate the surface-coupling approach in our integration platform, we have developed a strategy to transfer the following optical Input/Output devices into our fabrication process: grating couplers, and vertical mirrors. In addition, we introduced etched facets into the process to improve the usability of our edge-coupling elements. We believe that the additional flexibility in Input/Output interfacing combined with the integration of multiple devices onto one PIC to reduce the number of PIC-to-PIC alignments can contribute significantly to the development of compact, low-cost, and high-performance datacenter modules.
We demonstrate a fully integrated polarization beam splitter with a polarization extinction ratio above 25dB for both polarization states and an insertion loss of 2.5dB. The footprint of the device including electrical contacts is 0.4×2mm2. A Mach-Zehnder configuration is used, the birefringence in both arms differs due to different waveguide widths. Fabrication tolerances can be compensated with thermal tuning. The device is realized in our generic integration platform, making it viable to provide monolithically integrated solutions for polarization diversity applications
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