Compact inverse designed vertical coupler with bottom reflector for sub-decibel fiber-to-chip coupling on silicon on insulator platform.

ABSTRACT: Inverse design via topology optimization has led to innovations in integrated photonics and offers a promising way for designing high-efficiency on-chip couplers with a minimal footprint. In this work, we exploit topology optimization to design a compact vertical coupler incorporating a bottom reflector, which achieves sub-decibel coupling efficiency on the 220-nm silicon-on-insulator platform. The final design of the vertical coupler yields a predicted coupling efficiency of -0.35 dB at the wavelength of 1550 nm with a footprint of 14 µm × 14 µm, which is considerably smaller than conventional grating couplers. Its topology-optimized geometry can be realized by applying one full-etch and one 70-nm shallow-etch process and the fabricability is also guaranteed by a minimum feature size arou

SUBMITTER: Huang SY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11757707 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature