High-order grating coupler for high efficiency vertical to in-plane coupling

摘要

We present here the design of a robust broadband high efficiency surface-normal vertical to in-plane optical coupler using fourth-order gratings. The fourth-order gratings can be designed such that the zero-order diffraction is suppressed while the diffraction efficiencies of the higher orders are enhanced for the in-plane coupling. We numerically demonstrated the surface normal incidence light coupling efficiency of 88.5% at 1,535 nm with a 3 dB bandwidth of 42 nm and ldB bandwidth of 28 nm. Large fabrication tolerance of the fourth-order grating is also assessed.