High-Performance Silicon Photonic Filter Using Subwavelength-Structure Multimode Waveguide Gratings

On-chip photonic filters are one of the most important elements for spectrum manipulation in various optical systems, including wavelength-division multiplexing and spectrum analysis. Currently, it is still very challenging to achieve scalable photonic filters with flexibly-designed bandwidths, low excess losses, flat tops, and ultra-wide free-spectral ranges (FSRs). Here an unprecedented silicon photonic filter is proposed and demonstrated with high performances by using apodised antisymmetric multimode subwavelength gratings (MSWGs) structures. For the present silicon photonic filter, the MSWGs enable the index engineering in the Bragg lattice, which easily manipulates the coupling coefficient, the local effective index, and the mode profile flexibly. As a result, the strong side lobes of the grating filter are efficiently suppressed, while the bandwidth can be designed flexibly and the FSR is free. The fabricated silicon photonic filter is FSR-free and shows a low excess loss of <1 dB and a high sidelobe suppression ratio of 20-40 dB.

Automated summary

In this article, a high-performance silicon photonic filter is proposed and demonstrated using apodised antisymmetric multimode subwavelength gratings (MSWGs), which enable flexible manipulation of the coupling coefficient, the local effective index, and the mode profile.