APL Photonics (Nov 2017)

Multi-planar amorphous silicon photonics with compact interplanar couplers, cross talk mitigation, and low crossing loss

  • Jeff Chiles,
  • Sonia Buckley,
  • Nima Nader,
  • Sae Woo Nam,
  • Richard P. Mirin,
  • Jeffrey M. Shainline

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5000384
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 11
pp. 116101 – 116101-7

Abstract

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We propose and experimentally demonstrate a photonic routing architecture that can efficiently utilize the space of multi-plane (3D) photonic integration. A wafer with three planes of amorphous silicon waveguides was fabricated and characterized, demonstrating < 3 × 1 0 − 4 dB loss per out-of-plane waveguide crossing, 0.05 ± 0.02 dB per interplane coupler, and microring resonators on three planes with a quality factors up to 8.2 × 1 0 4 . We also explore a phase velocity mapping strategy to mitigate the cross talk between co-propagating waveguides on different planes. These results expand the utility of 3D photonic integration for applications such as optical interconnects, neuromorphic computing and optical phased arrays.