Dual-mode broadband compact 2 x 2 optical power splitter using sub-wavelength metamaterial structures

The multimode power splitter is a fundamental component in mode-division multiplexed systems. In this paper, we design and characterize a broadband compact dual-mode multimode interferometer (MMI) optical power splitter based on subwavelength grating (SWG) structures. The optimized dual-mode MMI is three times more compact than its conventional mode insensitive MMIs and shows low loss and low crosstalk flat response over 100 nm bandwidth. Characterizations of the fabricated dual-mode splitter show that the total excess loss in the experiment is less than 0.1 dB and 0.65 dB for TE0 and TE1, respectively, and the modal crosstalk is less than -17 dB for both input modes. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

In this paper, a compact dual-mode multimode interferometer optical power splitter based on subwavelength grating structures is designed and characterized. The optimized splitter is three times more compact than conventional MMIs, with low loss and crosstalk over a wide bandwidth. Experimental results show low excess loss and crosstalk levels for both TE0 and TE1 modes.