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US 11,181,760 B2Granted
Low-loss waveguiding structures, in particular modulators
AssigneeHyperLight Corporation
InventorsMian Zhang, Christian Reimer, Kevin Luke
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An optical modulator that uses adiabatic tapers to change the width of the waveguides between multimode waveguides and single mode waveguides on a low-loss, e.g. thin-film lithium niobate, electro-optic platform. The architecture enables the utilization of the fundamental mode of multimode wide optical waveguides that have lower optical propagation loss without sacrificing the benefit of the signal integrity and ease of control of single mode operation.
Claims20
An optical modulator comprising:
- an input port for launching a beam of light;
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of the beam of light, the first waveguide arm comprising first single mode waveguide sections and a first multimode waveguide section;
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light;
- an output port for outputting a modulated output beam of light;
- and
- adiabatic tapers for expanding one of the first single mode waveguide sections into the first multimode waveguide section, while maintaining the beam of light in fundamental TE or TM modes, and for tapering the first multimode waveguide section down to another one of the first single mode waveguide sections,
- wherein at least a portion of the first multimode waveguide section is disposed adjacent to the first set of electrodes.
4 more elements
An optical modulator comprising:
- an input port for launching a beam of light
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of the beam of light
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light
- an output port for outputting a modulated output beam of light
- wherein the first waveguide arm comprises first single mode waveguide sections and a first multimode waveguide section,
- wherein at least a portion of the first multimode waveguide section is disposed adjacent to the first set of electrodes, and
- wherein the first waveguide arm further comprises a second multimode waveguide section coupled to the first multimode waveguide section by at least one first single mode waveguide section;
- and
- further comprising a second set of electrodes adjacent to at least a portion of the second multimode waveguide section.
6 more elements
An optical modulator comprising:
- an input port for launching a beam of light
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of the beam of light
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light
- an output port for outputting a modulated output beam of light
- wherein the first waveguide arm comprises first single mode waveguide sections and a first multimode waveguide section,
- wherein at least a portion of the first multimode waveguide section is disposed adjacent to the first set of electrodes, and
- wherein the first single mode waveguide sections are configured to only support one TE mode and one TM mode with optical propagation loss<0.6 dB/cm, and optical propagation loss >1dB/cm for higher modes.
4 more elements
An optical modulator comprising:
- an input port for launching a beam of light
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of the beam of light
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light
- an output port for outputting a modulated output beam of light
- wherein the first waveguide arm comprises first single mode waveguide sections and a first multimode waveguide section,
- wherein at least a portion of the first multimode waveguide section is disposed adjacent to the first set of electrodes, and
- wherein the first multimode waveguide section supports more than one TE mode and more than one TM mode with optical propagation loss<0.6 dB/cm for both TE and TM modes.
4 more elements
An optical modulator comprising:
- an input port for launching a beam of light
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of the beam of light
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light
- an output port for outputting a modulated output beam of light
- a bus waveguide optically coupled to the input port at one end and to the output port at an opposite end;
- and
- a coupler configured to split the beam of light into a first sub-beam and a second sub-beam;
- wherein the first waveguide arm comprises first single mode waveguide sections and a first multimode waveguide section;
- wherein at least a portion of the first multimode waveguide section is disposed adjacent to the first set of electrodes;
- wherein the first waveguide arm comprises a ring resonator coupled to the coupler for transmitting the first sub-beam, and recombining the first sub-beam back into the bus waveguide;
- wherein the ring resonator includes curved sections and substantially straight or less curved sections;
- wherein at least a portion of some of the curved sections comprise the first single mode waveguide sections;
- and
- wherein one of the substantially straight or less curved sections comprise the first multimode waveguide section.
11 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.