Broadband Nonvolatile Tunable Mode-Order Converter Based on Silicon and Optical Phase Change Materials Hybrid Meta-Structure

摘要

Mode-order converter is a fundamental component in multimode optical interconnect, which is in charge of generating different mode-orders in the optical waveguide. In this article, we propose and design a broadband, nonvolatile tunable mode-order converter based on the platform of silicon and optical phase change materials hybrid meta-structure. When TE0 mode is input to this device, its functionality can be selectively switched to either keeping original mode-order or converting to another mode-order TE1 at the output port. The insertion losses are lower than 0.7 dB and 0.9 dB for the states of TE0 in, TE0 out and TE0 in, TE1 out within the wavelength of 1540-1600 nm. The footprint of the device is 22 mu m x 3.5 mu m. This platform combines the advantages of compact footprint and flexible function endowed by meta-structures, and dynamically tuning ability and nonvolatile characteristic provided by phase change materials. We envision that the proposed platform not only expands the library of the tunable mode-order converter, but also offers an efficient solution to design a series of tunable multimode devices.