A Theoretical and Experimental Study of Silicon Y-Branch Micro-Loop Reflectors

摘要

Y-branch micro-loop reflectors based on silicon nano-waveguides are designed, fabricated, and tested for maximizing the reflectivity in this letter. Our theoretical analysis suggests that a maximum reflectivity and a suppressed wavelength-sensitivity can be achieved by optimizing the waveguide dimensions of the Y-branch, given the phase distortion of the Y-branch is eliminated. The micro-loop reflector is fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator wafer, and the experimental results agree with the numerical analysis. The highest reflectivity achieved is 99.1% in the design and 89% in the experiment. This optimized Y-branch micro-loop reflector acts as a high-reflectivity reflector for chip-scale laser systems and integrated optical sensors.