US 2026/0309934 A1 · OPTICAL COUPLER WITH 3D STACKED WAVEGUIDES

Abstract

Optical couplers enable communication to and/or from PIC (Photonic Integrated Circuit). The optical couplers are manufactured at wafer-scale and provide detachable coupling to an array of optical fibers. A 3D waveguide structure is bonded to a PIC at the wafer level with high precision. Evanescent coupling is used to communicate optical signals between waveguides in the 3D waveguide structure and silicon waveguides within the PIC. Waveguides within the 3D waveguide structure are arranged to convert a 2D array of channels to a 3D array, with multiple stacked waveguides. This enables the connection interface to be scaled up from a 1-D array to a 2-D array, which increases the maximum number of optical channels in an interface between a PIC and a fiber array.

Claims20

Dependent claims

An assembly comprising:

a first layer;
a first plurality of waveguides extending along a surface of the first layer;
a second layer over the surface of the first layer;
and
a second plurality of waveguides within the second layer, wherein, at a first region of the second layer, each of the second plurality of waveguides is over a respective one of the first plurality of waveguides, and at a second region of the second layer, one of the second plurality of waveguides is over another one of the second plurality of waveguides.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Optical coupler with 3d stacked waveguides

Life of this patent

Optical coupler with 3d stacked waveguides

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20