Infrared and Laser Engineering, Volume. 52, Issue 9, 20220897(2023)

Design of high-efficiency lithium niobate thin film waveguide mode size converter

Guojian Ding1, Xiaohui Wang1, Qi Feng1, Ping Yu1, Haiqiang Jia1,2, Hong Chen1,2, and Yang Wang1、*
Author Affiliations
  • 1Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan 523808, China
  • 2Key Laboratory for Renewable Energy, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
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    ObjectiveThe photonic integration technology based on lithium niobate thin films has become increasingly prominent in the field of high-speed optoelectronics, and is widely used for various on-chip functions, such as electro-optical modulation, optical frequency comb, filter, nonlinear optical frequency converter, nonlinear quantum light source, laser etc. In the development of lithium niobate film photonic integration technology, there is an important technical bottleneck which is the effective coupling of lithium niobate film nanowaveguides and single-mode fibers, which is also the key to hinder the practical application of lithium niobate thin film photonic devices. On-chip mode size converter is widely used in mode field transformation to realize waveguide mode field transformation. Although the existing researches have improved the coupling efficiency by using bilayer tapered waveguides or composite structures, they are all coupled with tapered fiber or thin diameter fiber, which still cannot achieve effective coupling with single-mode fiber. To solve this problem, a mode size converter based on SiO2 waveguide, SiON tapered waveguide and bilayer LN tapered waveguide is designed to achieve efficient mode and energy transfer and conversion between lithium niobate film nanowaveguide and single-mode fiber. MethodsThe structure of the mode size convertor composed of SiO2 waveguide, SiON tapered waveguide and bilayer LN tapered waveguide is simulated by using the three-dimensional finite difference beam propagation method, and the structural parameters of each section are sequentially optimized through optical pattern matching design and adiabatic mode transmission design, and the optical coupling efficiency and adiabatic mode conversion efficiency of each section are simulated. Results and discussionsThe research results show that when the refractive index difference between the core layer and cladding layer of the SiO2 waveguide is 0.75% and the size of SiO2 waveguide is 6 μm×6 μm, the coupling efficiency between SiO2 waveguide and single-mode fiber is about 93% (Fig.6). When the mode field size of the wide end of SiON tapered waveguide is 2.5 μm×2.5 μm-3.5 μm×3.5 μm, the refractive index of the corresponding core layer is 1.48-1.51, the length of the SiON tapered waveguide (L1) is greater than 250 μm and the width of the tapered tip W3 is 0.1-0.3 μm, the optical mode is gradually converted from the SiO2 waveguide to the SiON waveguide, and the conversion efficiency of the SiON tapered waveguide is 93%-97.2% (Fig.8). The bilayer LN tapered waveguide includes the LN tapered planar waveguide and the LN tapered ridge waveguide. In the LN tapered planar waveguide, when the tapering length (L2) changes in the range of 200-300 μm, the width of the tapered tip W4 changes within 0.1-0.15 μm, and the width of the wide end (W5) changes in the range of 0.8-1.4 μm, the optical mode profile in LN tapered planar waveguide increases with the increase of the inverse taper width of LN tapered planar waveguide, while that in SiON layer decreases, and the conversion efficiency of the LN tapered planar waveguide is 96%-98.5% (Fig.9). In the LN tapered ridge waveguide, when the length of LN ridge tapered waveguide (L3) varies from 40 to 100 μm, and the width of the tapered tip of LN ridge tapered waveguide W6 varies from 0.1 μm to 0.3 μm, the optical mode is gradually converted into LN ridge waveguide optical mode, and conversion efficiency of the LN tapered ridge waveguide exceeds 99% (Fig.10). Through the above design, effective coupling with lithium niobate film waveguide and single-mode fiber can be realized, and the coupling efficiency is 82.2%-89.0% (Fig.11). At the same time, ± 1.8 μm fiber coupling alignment tolerance is obtained (Fig.12). ConclusionsThe proposed mode size converter based on SiO2 waveguide, SiON tapered waveguide and bilayer LN tapered waveguide provides a new method for the coupling and integration of lithium niobate thin film photonic devices, which can provide a reference for the next step of preparing highly efficient coupling lithium niobate thin film photonic devices, and is beneficial to further realize the integrated application of lithium niobate devices.

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    Guojian Ding, Xiaohui Wang, Qi Feng, Ping Yu, Haiqiang Jia, Hong Chen, Yang Wang. Design of high-efficiency lithium niobate thin film waveguide mode size converter[J]. Infrared and Laser Engineering, 2023, 52(9): 20220897

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    Paper Information

    Category: Optical devices

    Received: Dec. 27, 2022

    Accepted: --

    Published Online: Oct. 23, 2023

    The Author Email:

    DOI:10.3788/IRLA20220897

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