Compact beam splitters with deep gratings for miniature photonic integrated circuits: design and implementation aspects

We present an extensive study of an ultracompact grating-based beam splitter suitable for photonic integrated circuits (PICs) that have stringent density requirements. The 10 mu m long beam splitter exhibits equal splitting, low insertion loss, and also provides a high extinction ratio in an integrated coherent balanced receiver. We further present the design strategies for avoiding mode distortion in the beam splitter and discuss optimization of the widths of the detectors to improve insertion loss and extinction ratio of the coherent receiver circuit. In our study, we show that the grating-based beam splitter is a competitive technology having low fabrication complexity for ultracompact PICs. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America