A Fast Simulation Method of Silicon Nanophotonic Echelle Gratings and Its Applications in the Design of on-Chip Spectrometers

Abstract

Abstract-Due to their very high integration density, echelle grating spectrometers based on silicon nanophotonic platforms have received great attention for their applications in many areas, such as optical sensors, optical communications, and optical interconnections. The design of echelle gratings requires an effective modeling and simulation technique. Though we have used a boundary integral method to accurately analyze the polarization-dependent performance of the echelle grating, it is complicated and time-consuming for the simulation due to its large size and aperiodic structure. In the present paper, we will present a faster simulation method for the grating with twice total internal reflection facets based on a modified Kirchhoff-Huygens principle with the influence of the Goos-Hänchen shift considered. On the one hand, the presented simulation results agree well with our previous results obtained by the boundary integral method when the shift can accurately be calculated using a FDTD method. On the other hand, the biggest advantage of the new method over the existing methods is that it can also provide an insightful physical explanation for many numerical results. Finally, we will effectively apply the present method to design an on-chip spectrometer with very low noise floor.

A New Microhardness Testing Method on Grating Films

“…In optics, a diffraction grating is an optical component with a periodic structure that splits and diffracts light into several beams travelling in different directions, and its cross section usually shows a serrated, sinusoidal, or rectangular array. Gratings have many applications in a variety of spectrometers [1] and, especially, have received great attention for their applications in the selection of laser frequency and bandwidth compression area [2][3][4][5]. As the core component of high-precision spectral instruments [6], gratings are widely used in military, astronomy, alternative energy, biochemical analysis [7], and other fields [8].…”

Roughness reduction of large-area high-quality thick Al films for echelle gratings by multi-step deposition method

“…Since echelle grating was invented by Harrison in 1949 [1], it has been applied extensively in spectral detection and analysis fields due to its high diffraction order, broad spectrum range, high dispersion, and excellent resolution [2][3][4]. Large-size echelle grating, as an extension to conventional echelle grating, can achieve a super-high spectrum resolution up to 10 6 owing to its extremely high diffraction order and large aperture [5,6].…”