Monolithically integrated mode converter from terahertz substrateless silicon guide to conductive slotline

Abstract

Although substrateless micro-scale silicon waveguides are a useful and versatile platform for terahertz waves, the fact that modal fields occupy the volume of the core limits the potential to dynamically manipulate guided waves. To address this, we introduce an aperiodic lattice structure to enable the monolithic co-integration of a Vivaldi antenna-like mode converter with a substrateless silicon waveguide. This broadband transition is experimentally confirmed to exhibit ∼2.5 dB average loss for two couplers, from 220 GHz to 330 GHz, and enables a photoexcited variable attenuator as proof-of-concept demonstration. This is an important enabling step to incorporate general-purpose dynamic reconfigurability, sensing, and modulation functionality into terahertz-range silicon-based integrated circuits, which are currently limited to primarily all-passive structures.