Tunable Directional Coupler

Monireh Moayedi Pour FardMonireh.moayedipourfard@mail.mcgill.ca

Photonics system groupMcGill University

July 2012

Directional Coupler has many applications in

photonic systems and optical communication

50/50, 20/80 , 10/90, …

Coupling ratio change with wavelength

Motivation

Gap

Coupling Length (Lc)

Tunable Coupler

What is a tunable coupler?

◦ Tunable Coupling ratio

◦ Tunable Wavelength

Tuning by changing the refractive index

• Changing the temperature

• Carrier injection

Design and simulation of directional

couplers ◦ Sweeping temperature in couplers with different

lengths, gaps, and waveguide structure.◦ Studying the usage of temperature sensitive

polymer as cladding part.

Objectives

Strip Waveguide ridge WaveguideNon-uniform ridge Waveguide

Find supermode effective indices, • Lumerical mode solver

calculate coupling Sweep effective indices changes based on

temperature changing Sweep effective indices changes based on

wavelength changing Studying the effect of temperature sensitive

polymer as cladding

Design Methodalogy

Thanks!