title: Integrated polarization beam splitter with relaxed fabrication tolerances.
abstract: Polarization handling is a key requirement for the next generation of photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Integrated polarization beam splitters (PBS) are central elements for polarization management, but their use in PICs is hindered by poor fabrication tolerances. In this work we present a fully passive, highly fabrication tolerant polarization beam splitter, based on an asymmetrical Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with a Si/SiO(2) Periodic Layer Structure (PLS) on top of one of its arms. By engineering the birefringence of the PLS we are able to design the MZI arms so that sensitivities to the most critical fabrication errors are greatly reduced. Our PBS design tolerates waveguide width variations of 400nm maintaining a polarization extinction ratio better than 13dB in the complete C-Band.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ingeniería de Comunicaciones, ETSI Telecomunicación, Universidad de Malaga, 29010 Málaga, Spain. diego.perez@ic.uma.es
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pérez-Galacho
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Halir
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ortega-Moñux
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Alonso-Ramos
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Runge
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Janiak
authors.forename: H-G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Bach
authors.forename: A G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Steffan
authors.forename: Í
authors.initials: Í
authors.lastname: Molina-Fernández
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007368:Interferometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007909:Lenses; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*