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US 11,287,585 B2Granted
Optical fiber-to-chip interconnection
AssigneeNubis Communications, Inc.
InventorPeter Johannes Winzer
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Provided is a connector assembly for optically connecting one or more optical fibers and an array of vertical coupling elements of a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). In various embodiments, the connector assembly is constructed to independently optically scale some feature sizes, such as, for example, the transverse mode size, the array size, the array geometry, and/or various incidence angles, the optical scaling being performed, e.g., from a fiber end face plane to a connector-mating plane and further to a PIC coupling plane. In some embodiments, the connector assembly may support a polarization (de)multiplexing functionality.
Claims30
An apparatus comprising:
- one or more optical fibers having a plurality of fiber cores;
- a photonic integrated circuit including a plurality of vertical-coupling elements disposed along a main surface of the photonic integrated circuit;
- and
- a fiber-optic connector connected between the one or more optical fibers and the photonic integrated circuit to communicate light therebetween through the main surface, the fiber-optic connector comprising optics configured to transfer light between the plurality of fiber cores and the plurality of vertical-coupling elements such that:
- a first distance between a first pair of the fiber cores is optically scaled by a first scaling factor having a value different from 1 such that at the vertical-coupling elements, a second distance between a pair of light beams transmitted from or to the first pair of the fiber cores is different from the first distance between the first pair of the fiber cores, and a ratio between the second distance and the first distance is equal to the first scaling factor;
- and
- a first diameter of a light beam emitting from an exit surface or entering an entrance surface of at least one of the fiber cores is optically scaled by a second scaling factor that is different from the first scaling factor, wherein at a vertical-coupling element optically coupled to the fiber core, the light beam has a second diameter that is different from the first diameter, and a ratio between the second diameter and the first diameter is equal to the second scaling factor.
4 more elements
An apparatus comprising:
- one or more optical fibers having a plurality of fiber cores;
- a photonic integrated circuit comprising a main surface and a plurality of vertical-coupling elements disposed on the main surface;
- and
- a fiber-optic connector configured to communicate light between the one or more optical fibers and the photonic integrated circuit through the main surface, in which the fiber-optic connector comprises optics configured to process light beams transmitted between the plurality of fiber cores and the plurality of vertical-coupling elements,
- wherein the plurality of fiber cores comprise a first pair of fiber cores that include a first fiber core and a second fiber core, the second fiber core is spaced apart from the first fiber core by a first distance D1, and the first pair of fiber cores are configured to emit or receive a first pair of light beams that include a first light beam and a second light beam;
- wherein the optics is configured to process the first pair of the light beams such that at the vertical-coupling elements, the second light beam is spaced apart from the first light beam by a second distance D2, D2 being different from D1, and D2/D1 equals a first scaling factor;
- wherein one of the plurality of fiber cores is configured to emit or receive a third light beam that has a first diameter D3 at an exit surface or entrance surface of the fiber core, and
- wherein the optics is configured to process the third light beam such that at one of the vertical-coupling elements, the third light beam has a second diameter D4, and D4/D3 equals a second scaling factor that is different from the first scaling factor.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.