Silicon-Nitride-Assisted Edge Coupler Interfacing With High Numerical Aperture Fiber

Reducing the mode size mismatch between high-index-contrast silicon waveguide and single-mode fiber takes an important role in photonic integration. A low-loss and broadband silicon-nitride-assisted edge coupler for the coupling of light between silicon wire waveguides and high numerical aperture fiber is proposed and optimized for TE polarization. The mode size converter is composed of silicon inverse taper waveguides in the core and two silicon nitride interlayers spaced by silica in cladding layers. The edge coupler is characterized by cleaved high numerical aperture fiber (mode field diameter is about 6.5 mu m). With the help of refractive index matching oil (n = 1.46), the coupling loss for TE polarized light input is 0.35 dB at 1570 nm. The 1-dB bandwidth is 95 nm. The 1-dB alignment tolerances are higher than +/- 2.5 and +/- 1 mu m in the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively, and higher than 25 mu m in the axial direction.