Compact optical 90° hybrid based on a wedge-shaped 2 × 4 MMI coupler and a 2 × 2 MMI coupler on a thin-film lithium...

We performed an experimental demonstration of a wedge-shaped optical 90° hybrid coupler on the thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) platform, utilizing a paired-interference-based 2 × 4 multimode interference (MMI) coupler and a general-interference-based 2 × 2 MMI coupler. The fabricated optical 90° hybrid coupler has a compact footprint with a width of 18 µm and a length of 134 µm. In a coherent receiving system, the hybrid coupler directly connects to the balanced photodiode array, eliminating the need for waveguide crossings or cascaded phase shifters. The device exhibits a  < 1.1 dB excess loss, a  > 20 dB common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR), a  < 1.3 dB wavelength sensitive loss, and a  < ±5° phase deviation over a spectral range of 1530-1560 nm, which is promising to enable a compact heterogeneously integrated coherent receiving system on the thin-film lithium niobate platform.