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US 9,791,629 B2Granted
Active alignment of optical fiber to chip using liquid crystals
AssigneeMicron Technology, Inc.
InventorsRoy Meade, Gurtej Sandhu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Devices and systems to perform optical alignment by using one or more liquid crystal layers to actively steer a light beam from an optical fiber to an optical waveguide integrated on a chip. An on-chip feedback mechanism can steer the beam between the fiber and a grating based waveguide to minimize the insertion loss of the system.
Claims8
A method of manufacturing a photonic chip assembly, the method comprising:
- providing a chip having an optical waveguide and a light coupling grating integrated thereon;
- providing an optical fiber configured to provide a light beam therefrom;
- disposing a switchable beam steering device between the optical fiber and the optical waveguide such that the switchable beam steering device is configured to receive actively steer the light beam from the optical fiber and into the optical coupling grating, wherein the switchable beam steering device comprises:
- a liquid crystal polarization grating;
- and
- a first waveplate bonded to the switchable liquid crystal polarization grating and configured to selectively change a polarization state of an incoming light beam;
- coupling a voltage source to the switchable beam steering device, the voltage source comprising a controller configured to determine a light intensity within the optical waveguide and to control voltages applied to the switchable beam steering device to increase the light intensity in the optical waveguide.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.