Author(s): Xu, XR (Xu, Xinru); Yin, YX (Yin, Yuexin); Yao, MK (Yao, Mengke); Yin, XJ (Yin, Xiaojie); Gao, FF (Gao, Feifei); Wu, YD (Wu, Yuanda); Chen, CM (Chen, Changming); Wang, F (Wang, Fei); Zhang, DM (Zhang, Daming)

Source: MICROMACHINES Volume: 13 Issue: 12 Article Number: 2116 DOI: 10.3390/mi13122116 Published: DEC 2022

Abstract: Low-power-consumption optical devices are crucial for large-scale photonic integrated circuits (PICs). In this paper, a three-dimensional (3D) polymer variable optical attenuator (VOA) is proposed. For monolithic integration of silica and polymer-based planar lightwave circuits (PLCs), the vertical VOA is inserted between silica-based waveguides. Optical and thermal analyses are performed through the beam propagation method (BPM) and finite-element method (FEM), respectively. A compact size of 3092 mu m x 4 mu m x 7 mu m is achieved with a vertical multimode interference (MMI) structure. The proposed VOA shows an insertion loss (IL) of 0.58 dB and an extinction ratio (ER) of 21.18 dB. Replacing the graphene heater with an aluminum (Al) electrode, the power consumption is decreased from 29.90 mW to 21.25 mW. The rise and fall time are improved to 353.85 mu s and 192.87 mu s, respectively. The compact and high-performance VOA shows great potential for a variety of applications, including optical communications, integrated optics, and optical interconnections.

Accession Number: WOS:000903238000001

PubMed ID: 36557416

Author Identifiers:

Author        Web of Science ResearcherID        ORCID Number

Zhang, Daming                  0000-0002-5651-8699

eISSN: 2072-666X

Full Text: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/13/12/2116