A technological platform based on low-temperature hybrid sol-gel method for fabrication of optical waveguides and integrated optical components has been developed. The developed chemistry for doping incorporation in the host network provides a range of refractive indexes (1.444-1.51) critical for device optimization. A passivation method for improving long-term stability of organic-inorganic sol-gel material is reported. The degradation of waveguide loss over time due to moisture adsorption from the atmosphere is drastically suppressed by coating the material with a protective thin SiO2 film. The results indicate a long-term optical loss below 0.3 dB/cm for protected waveguides. The theory of multimode interference couplers employing self-imaging effect is described. A novel approach for design of high-performance MMI devices in low-contrast material is proposed. The design method is based on optimization of refractive index contrast and width of a multimode waveguide (the body of MMI couplers) to achieve a maximum number of constructively interfering modes resulting to the best self-imaging. This optimization is carried out using 3D BPM simulations. This method was applied to design 1 x 4, 1 x 12, and 4 x 4 MMI couplers and led to a superior performance in excess loss, power imbalance in output ports, and polarization sensitivity. Taking advantage of the inherent input-output phase relations in a 4 x 4 MMI coupler, an optical 90° hybrid is realized by incorporation a Y-junction to coherently excite two ports of the coupler. A series of MMI couplers were fabricated and characterized. The experimental results are in good agreement with the design. Measured performance of the sol-gel derived MMI components was compared to analogues fabricated by other technologies. The comparison demonstrates the superior performance of the sol-gel devices. The polarization sensitivity of all fabricated couplers is below 0.05 dB.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/280437 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Mishechkin, Oleg |
| Contributors | Fallahi, Mahmoud |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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