High-bandwidth and low-loss photonic crystal power-splitter with parallel output based on the integration of Y-junction and waveguide bends

A 1 x 2 power-splitter with parallel output that exhibits high-bandwidth and low-loss splitting for TE-polarized light is designed based on a photonic crystal slab in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material. The high performance is achieved by the integration of a Y-junction and 60 degrees waveguide bends, which is designed to ensure single-mode operation, and keep the output channels of the power-splitter be parallel to the input channel. With a three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D-FDTD) technique, ultralow-loss output of the optimized power-splitter with normalized transmission above 45% (in the range 3.216 +/- 0.18 dB) is obtained in the high-bandwidth range 1472-1634 nm, which covers the entire C-band of optical communication. In addition, the simulation results demonstrate that when the manufacture error of the lattice shift (dx) is in the range of +/- 10 nm, the disturbance of the transmission and the bandwidth are 1.52% and 6.79%, respectively. Both the specific result and the general idea of integration design are promising in the optical integrated circuit (OIC) and integrated optical devices in the future. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.