Self-aligned Fibre-to-Chip Edge Coupling Structure with Suspended Taper
摘要
We propose a self-aligned fiber-to-chip coupling structure to address optical fiber alignment and mode-mismatch issues between the modes of cleaved single-mode optical fibers and integrated Silicon on Insulator (SOI) waveguides. The structure consists of a suspended linear taper and an innovatively shaped on-chip groove fabricated with a two-step inductively coupled plasma deep reactive ion etching (ICP-DRIE) independent of the silicon crystal lattice orientation. We achieved coupling losses of the order of 2.5 dB per facet, with the optical fiber automatically aligning with the integrated waveguide.