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Single-step-etched ultra-compact metamaterial grating coupler enabled by a hierarchical inverse design approach

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Abstract

With the concept of metamaterials introduced into integrated photonics, subwavelength structures have gained popularity for their ability to create devices with ultra-compact size, high performance, and versatile functionalities. However, traditional metamaterial design methods are usually based on empirical templates and physical approximations, lacking the ability to design free-form metamaterial structures and optimize entire devices globally. In this work, we propose a hierarchical inverse design approach that combines a conventional effective refractive index based metamaterial structures design with a follow-up global topology optimization. The empirical metamaterial grating coupler design based on effective refractive index engineering faces inaccurate index extraction and insufficient approximation of wavevector matching conditions, which deteriorates coupling efficiency, especially for fully-etched devices with the decreased tapering region. Fortunately, a subsequent overall topology optimization step can well compensate for the negative effect of the shrinking device footprint to increase the efficiency of the metamaterial grating coupler. We demonstrate a 23 μm×10 μm ultra-compact metamaterial grating coupler with single-step-etched to couple light between a fiber and a 500 nm single-mode silicon waveguide in the O-band. Experimental measurement shows an insertion loss of 3.17 dB and a 3 dB bandwidth of 77 nm, making it the smallest footprint device ever reported.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Intelligent Network Research Institute, Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, 311100, China

    Qiao Wang, Ruiqi Luo, Nan Liu, Maojing Hou, Guandong Liu & Wei Ma

  2. State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, College of Information Science and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

    Bo Xiong & Wei Ma

Authors
  1. Qiao Wang
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  2. Ruiqi Luo
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  3. Nan Liu
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  4. Maojing Hou
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  5. Bo Xiong
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  7. Wei Ma
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wei Ma.

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Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (GrantNo. 2021YFA1401200), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 62322511, 62105285, and 62275230).

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The supporting information is available online at http://phys.scichina.com and https://link.springer.com. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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Wang, Q., Luo, R., Liu, N. et al. Single-step-etched ultra-compact metamaterial grating coupler enabled by a hierarchical inverse design approach. Sci. China Phys. Mech. Astron. 67, 224211 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-023-2236-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-023-2236-3

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