Waveguide Technology: Development and Applications

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Optics and Lasers".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 1417

Special Issue Editor

Faculty of Engineering, Holon Institute of Technology (HIT), Holon 5810201, Israel
Interests: nanophotonics; super-resolution; silicon photonics; fiber optics; image processing
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The unique structure of the slot waveguide has received an increasing amount of interest since it was first demonstrated. In this structure, the optical field is confined inside the low refractive index material (slot region) which is surrounded by a high refractive index material, usually silicon. In this structure, the electric field of quasi-TM mode goes through a large discontinuity between low refractive index and high refractive index materials. Therefore, light is strongly confined in a nanometer-wide region of the low-index slot. Although the light is guided and enhanced in low refractive index material, the guiding mechanism is still based on total internal reflection. Using this unique structure leads to a variety of advantages, such as a small beat length of the guiding light and a strong confinement in the slot region that results in extremely low losses. Another benefit is that CMOS-compatible materials and technology can be used in slot-waveguide fabrication.

Thus, slot waveguide technology has become a significant subject of research and growth in the understanding of nanometer-scale photonic devices. It allows low-cost optical devices by using common semiconductor fabrication techniques and their relatively simple integration with microelectronic chips.

We invite investigators to submit papers that discuss the development of optical devices based on slot-waveguide technology.

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

  • Semiconductor-materials-based slot waveguide technology;
  • Tapers and couplers for coupling light to nano-silicon chip;
  • Multiplexer/demultiplexer for o/c-band range;
  • Power combiner/splitter;
  • Grating coupler, ring-resonator, MZM,
  • Special optical fibers
  • Polarization;
  • Waveguide structurer;
  • Sensing;
  • Modulators;
  • Filters;
  • Amplifiers and lasers;
  • Study new slot waveguide structure;
  • Study modes field inside waveguide structure;
  • VLC devices based on  waveguide structure;
  • Fabrication of new optical waveguide structures;
  • Numerical methods for solving slot waveguide structure.

Dr. Dror Malka
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • slot waveguide
  • multi slot waveguide
  • FV-BPM
  • FDTD
  • SOI
  • silicon
  • sensor
  • combiner
  • splitter
  • polarization
  • amplifier
  • laser
  • filter
  • modulator

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

13 pages, 4562 KiB  
Article
O-Band Grating Couplers Using Silicon Nitride Structures
by Eli Ohana and Dror Malka
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(17), 9951; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13179951 - 03 Sep 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1105
Abstract
To test silicon photonics component performances, a silicon (Si) grating coupler (GC) is used to couple the light from a single-mode fiber (SMF) into the chip. However, silicon nitride (Si3N4) waveguides have recently become more popular for realizing photonic [...] Read more.
To test silicon photonics component performances, a silicon (Si) grating coupler (GC) is used to couple the light from a single-mode fiber (SMF) into the chip. However, silicon nitride (Si3N4) waveguides have recently become more popular for realizing photonic integrated circuits (PICs), which may be attributable to their exceptional characteristics, such as minimal absorption and low back reflection (BR) in the O-band spectrum. Thus, to test the photonic chip, a waveguide converter from Si3N4 to Si needs to be added to the photonic circuit, which can lead to more power losses and BR. To avoid this conversion, we propose in this manuscript a configuration of a GC based on Si3N4 structures, which can be employed to minimize the footprint size and obtain better performance. The achievement of high efficiency was possibly obtained by optimizing the structural properties of the waveguide and the coupling angle from the SMF. The results demonstrated high efficiency within the O-band spectrum by using a wavelength of 1310 nm. Notably, at this specific wavelength, the findings indicated a coupling efficiency of −5.52 db. The proposed design of the GC consists of a uniform grating that offers improvements regarding affordability and simplicity in manufacturing compared to other GC models. For instance, using a reflector or a GC with non-uniform grooved teeth introduces challenges in fabrication and incurs higher costs. Thus, the proposed design can be useful for improving the testing abilities of the Si3N4 photonic chips used in transceiver systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Waveguide Technology: Development and Applications)
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