Design, fabrication, and characterization of Si-based ARROW photonic crystal bend waveguides and power splitters

Silicon-based (Si-based) photonic crystal waveguide based on antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW PCW) structures consisting of 60° bends and Y-branch power splitters were designed and first efficiently fabricated and characterized. The ARROW structure has a relatively large core size suitable for efficient coupling with a single-mode fiber. Simple capsule-shaped topography defects at 60° photonic crystal (PC) bend corners and Y-branch PC power splitters were used for increasing the broadband light transmission. In the preliminary measurements, the propagation losses of the ARROW PC straight waveguides lower than 2 dB/mm with a long length of 1500 μm were achieved. The average bend loss of 60° PC bend waveguides was lower than 3 dB/bend. For the Y-branch PC power splitters, the average power imbalance was lower than 0.6 dB. The results show that our fabricated Si-based ARROW PCWs with 60° bends and Y-branch structures can provide good light transmission and power-splitting ability.