High efficiency diffractive grating couplers for interfacing a single mode optical fiber with a nanophotonic silicon-on-insulator waveguide circuit

High efficiency diffractive grating structures to interface a single mode optical fiber and a nanophotonic integrated circuit fabricated on silicon-on-insulator are presented. The diffractive grating structures are designed to be inherently very directional by adding a silicon overlay before grating definition. 55% coupling efficiency at a wavelength of 1.53 mu m is experimentally demonstrated on devices fabricated using standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology. By optimizing the grating parameters, we theoretically show that 80% grating coupling efficiency can be obtained for a uniform grating structure. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.