Mode-assisted Silicon Integrated Interferometric Optical Gyroscope

Abstract

The increasing demands in consumer electronics markets have promoted the development of chip-scale optical gyroscopes. In this study, a mode-assisted on-chip silicon-on-insulator interferometric optical gyroscope is proposed and assessed. The proposed gyroscope uses two different spatial modes propagating oppositely in the sensing waveguide coil to form a fixed phase difference that ensures the system operating at the best sensitive point. Compared with conventional schemes, it avoids the phase modulator and the circulator, which are not easy to be integrated in the same platform. The simulated results show that the detectable angular rate reaches 0.64 deg/s with a footprint of 3.85 × 10−3 m2. The experimental results validate the realization of the highly sensitive phase bias of the fabricated device.

Research progress of integrated optical gyroscope

“…However, achieving high responsivities in chip-scale IIOGs is more challenging compared to fiber IOGs because the responsivity of the IOG is proportional to its area. Figure 4 shows a typical integrated IOG that has been implemented using various material platforms, including SOI [21] , silica [22] , and SiN [23,24] .…”

“…The coiled waveguide had a length of 2.76 cm with 15 crossings, an average propagation loss of 1.328 dB/cm, and an average crossing loss of 0.075 dB at 1550 nm. In a subsequent study, the same team proposed an on-chip silicon mode-assisted IIOG using different modes propagating oppositely in a waveguide coil based SOI [21] , which avoids integrating the polarization-maintaining fiber and circulator [Fig. 4 The use of SiO 2 coiled waveguides has been explored in IIOGs, as shown in Fig.…”

Integrated photonic chips based on Sagnac interference

“…shows a silicon IOG consisting of two mode multiplexers, two 3-dB couplers, a thermo-optic micro-heater, two bent connecting waveguides, several grating couplers, and a coiled waveguide [130]. Two counter-propagating modes in the coiled waveguide induced a constant phase difference, which was engineered to achieve significantly improved detection sensitivity for the system.…”

Design and simulation of a silicon-based hybrid integrated optical gyroscope system

“…In 2018, Mohammadi [17] proposed a photonic crystal resonator structure consisting of a 3 dB coupler, two bus waveguides, and five ring resonators with different radii and refractive indices to improve the coupling efficiency between the ring resonator and the waveguide, where the simulated quality factor is 4326. Progressively, in 2019, Yu [18] proposed a mode-assisted integrated waveguide interferometric gyroscope structure, which utilizes the back-propagation of two different spatial modes in the waveguide sensing coil to form a fixed phase difference to achieve high-sensitivity detection. In 2020, Daoxin [19] at Zhejiang University proposed a super-high quality factor racetrack micro-ring resonator structure, where the quality factor is as high as 2.3 × 10 6 theoretically.…”