2021/09/28 by Saumil Bandyopadhyay, Dirk Englund, Bandyopadhyay, Saumil +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Optics (physics.optics) #physics.app-ph #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2110.12851
9 pages, 7 figures. Comments welcome
arxiv created 2021/09/28 · arxiv updated 2021/10/26
Next generation optoelectronic systems will require the efficient transfer of optical signals between many discrete photonic components integrated onto a single substrate. While modern assembly processes can easily integrate thousands of electrical components onto a single board, photonic assembly is far more challenging due to the wavelength-scale alignment tolerances required. Here we address this problem by introducing an alignment-free photonic coupler robust to x, y, z displacement and angular misalignment. This alignment-free coupler engineers a translationally-invariant evanescent interaction between waveguides by intersecting them at an angle, which enables a lateral and angular alignment tolerance fundamentally larger than non-evanescent approaches such as edge coupling. We show that our approach can function as a universal photonic connector interfacing photonic integrated circuits and microchiplets across different platforms. As a potential use case, we describe a new type of self-aligning photonic circuit board enabled by our approach that greatly simplifies assembly of complex optoelectronic systems.