A CMOS Compatible Monolithic Fiber Attach Solution with Reliable Performance and Self-alignment

Peng, Bo; Barwicz, Tymon; Şahin, Asli; Houghton, Thomas; Hedrick, Brittany; Bian, Yusheng; Rakowski, Michal; Hu, Shuren; Ayala, Javier; Meagher, Colleen; Sowinski, Zoey; Nummy, Karen; Stricker, Andy; Lubguban, Jorge; Chen, Hui; Fasano, Benjamin; Melville, Ian; Wu, Zhuo-Jie; Cho, Jae Kyu; Jacob, Ajey; Riggs, Dave; Berger, Daniel; Letavic, T.; Yu, Anthony W.; Pellerin, John; Giewont, Ken

doi:10.1364/ofc.2020.th3i.4

Cited by 13 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The relaxed alignment tolerances open a path towards passive assembly techniques exploiting machine vision and/or simple mechanical stops and even permit repluggable fiber-to-chip connectors based on mass-producible injection-molded plastic parts. In comparison to the aforementioned metamaterial-based suspended-membrane tapers 32,33 , our method provides similar coupling performance while being much more flexible. Facet-attached microlenses are compatible with all photonic integration platforms and can be applied to vastly different multi-chip and fiber-chip assemblieswithout any need for technologically demanding under-etching at the chip facet.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…In addition, proper matching of mode fields may represent a challenge, especially when connecting waveguides with vastly different refractive-index-contrasts. Recently, a highly scalable passive edge-coupling approach was demonstrated, which couples light from a ribbon fiber to a SiP chip using metamaterial suspended-membrane tapers 32,33 and etched V-grooves, offering insertion losses of 0.9 … 1.5 dB. However, additional process steps are required for the metamaterial under-etch, which are not generally available.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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3D-printed facet-attached microlenses for advanced photonic system assembly

Xu¹,

Maier²,

Trappen³

et al. 2023

gxjzz

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Wafer-level mass production of photonic integrated circuits (PIC) has become a technological mainstay in the field of optics and photonics, enabling many novel and disrupting a wide range of existing applications. However, scalable photonic packaging and system assembly still represents a major challenge that often hinders commercial adoption of PIC-based solutions. Specifically, chip-to-chip and fiber-to-chip connections often rely on so-called active alignment techniques, where the coupling efficiency is continuously measured and optimized during the assembly process. This unavoidably leads to technically complex assembly processes and high cost, thereby eliminating most of the inherent scalability advantages of PIC-based solutions. In this paper, we demonstrate that 3D-printed facet-attached microlenses (FaML) can overcome this problem by opening an attractive path towards highly scalable photonic system assembly, relying entirely on passive assembly techniques based on industry-standard machine vision and/or simple mechanical stops. FaML can be printed with high precision to the facets of optical componen ts using multi-photon lithography, thereby offering the possibility to shape the emitted beams by freely designed refractive or reflective surfaces. Specifically, the emitted beams can be collimated to a comparatively large diameter that is independent of the device-specific mode fields, thereby relaxing both axial and lateral alignment tolerances. Moreover, the FaML concept allows to insert discrete optical elements such as optical isolators into the free-space beam paths between PIC facets. We show the viability and the versatility of the scheme in a series of selected experiments of high technical relevance, comprising pluggable fiber-chip interfaces, the combination of PIC with discrete micro-optical elements such as polarization beam splitters, as well as coupling with ultra-low back-reflection based on non-planar beam paths that only comprise tilted optical surfaces. Based on our results, we believe that the FaML concept opens an attractive path towards novel PIC-based system architectures that combine the distinct advantages of different photonic integration platforms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

3D-printed facet-attached microlenses for advanced photonic system assembly

Xu¹,

Maier²,

Trappen³

et al. 2023

gxjzz

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In butt coupling strategy, difficulty and complexity in fabrication and packaging are the inescapable challenges. Employing the multilayers [34][35][36] or suspended schemes [37][38][39] can distinctly improve the coupling efficiency. However, in a standard photonics foundry, enormous challenges will be generated in the fabrication and packaging due to the excrescent complexity and difficulty.…”

Section: Ultra-low Loss Si 3 N 4 Edge Couplersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultra‐Low Loss SiN Edge Coupler for III‐V/SiN Hybrid Integration

He,

Cui,

Xiang

et al. 2023

Laser & Photonics Reviews

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Silicon photonics is becoming a competitive technology to settle the issues of power and speed in data centers and computing systems. However, the absence of an on‐chip light source restricts the wide and deep application of silicon photonics. Essentially, efficient edge coupling from a Si‐based III‐V laser to silicon photonic components remains the major obstacle for on‐chip integration. Here, two compact edge couplers with ultra‐low coupling loss and eased fabrication for the light transmission from a Si‐based III‐V laser to Si3N4 waveguide are realized. An ultra‐low laser‐to‐chip coupling loss of only 1.175 dB for the butt coupling of a Si‐based InAs QD laser is experimentally demonstrated with high alignment tolerance. The strategies presented here provide a competitive solution for realizing ultra‐efficient integration of Si‐based light sources and silicon photonic components.

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“…13 Experiments show that the loss over the C band with a 2.5 μm MFD fiber is less than 2 dB/facet. Peng et al proposed a metamaterial edge coupler with the measured loss of 1.3/1.5 dB for the TE/TM mode, 17 but this structure needs a more intricate process, while the Si coupler is required to be suspended with a V-groove at the chip facet.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultracompact Fiber-to-Chip Metamaterial Edge Coupler

Guo

Wang

et al. 2021

ACS Photonics

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Compact fiber-to-chip light coupling with low loss and large bandwidth, SMF-to-chip edge coupler in particular, is extensively demanded in integrated photonics. The inescapable challenge of edge coupler is the difficulty and complexity in fabrication and packaging. During the past decades, metamaterials have manifested marvelous talent in integrated photonics. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an ultracompact edge coupler via metamaterial for SMF with a mode field diameter of 10 μm, which is fully based on silicon-on-insulator material and a CMOS compatible fabrication process. In this work, we theoretically analyze the coupling performance and the fabrication difficulty. The experimental results show that this metamaterial-based coupler possesses low coupling loss and broad bandwidth simultaneously with the coupling length of only 90 μm. At 1550 nm, the coupling losses are 2.22/2.53 dB/facet for the fundamental TE/TM mode, while the minimum average loss could reach 1.81 dB/facet. The measured bandwidth with a loss below 3 dB is as broad as 120 nm, covering the entire C/L band. Moreover, this prominently eased fabrication process potentially exhibits significant superiority in both research and industrial applications.

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A CMOS Compatible Monolithic Fiber Attach Solution with Reliable Performance and Self-alignment

Cited by 13 publications

References 6 publications

3D-printed facet-attached microlenses for advanced photonic system assembly

3D-printed facet-attached microlenses for advanced photonic system assembly

Ultra‐Low Loss SiN Edge Coupler for III‐V/SiN Hybrid Integration

Ultracompact Fiber-to-Chip Metamaterial Edge Coupler

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