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US 11,815,750 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.
Claims19
An optical modulator comprising:
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of a beam of light, the first waveguide arm comprising a first single mode waveguide section and a first multimode waveguide section;
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light;
- and
- an adiabatic taper coupling the first single mode waveguide section and the 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 section and the first multimode waveguide section comprise Lithium Niobate or Lithium Tantalate.
4 more elements
An optical modulator comprising
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of a beam of light, the first waveguide arm comprising a first single mode waveguide section and a first multimode waveguide section;
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light;
- and
- an adiabatic taper coupling the first single mode waveguide section and the 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 further comprises a second multimode waveguide section coupled to the first multimode waveguide section by a second single mode waveguide section;
- and
- further comprising a second set of electrodes adjacent to at least a portion of the second multimode waveguide section.
5 more elements
An optical modulator comprising:
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of a beam of light, the first waveguide arm comprising a first single mode waveguide section and a first multimode waveguide section;
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light;
- and
- an adiabatic taper coupling the first single mode waveguide section and the 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 single mode waveguide section and the first multimode waveguide section comprise an electro-optic material with an electro-optic constant>10 pm/V.
3 more elements
An optical modulator comprising:
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of a beam of light, the first waveguide arm comprising a first single mode waveguide section and a first multimode waveguide section;
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light;
- an adiabatic taper coupling the first single mode waveguide section and the first multimode waveguide section;
- a bus waveguide optically coupled to an input port at one end and to an output port at an opposite end;
- and
- a coupler coupled along the bus waveguide and configured to split the beam of light into a first sub-beam and a second sub-beam;
- 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 section;
- and
- wherein one of the substantially straight or less curved sections comprise the first multimode waveguide section.
9 more elements
An optical modulator comprising:
- a first waveguide arm for transmitting at least a first portion of a beam of light, the first waveguide arm comprising a first single mode waveguide section and a first multimode waveguide section;
- a first set of electrodes for modulating the beam of light;
- and
- an adiabatic taper coupling the first single mode waveguide section and the 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 adiabatic taper is configured to adiabatically convert a single mode of the first single mode waveguide section to and from a fundamental TE or TM mode of the first multimode waveguide section.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.