Silicon ring resonators with a free spectral range robust to fabrication variations

Silicon ring resonators with a free spectral range robust to fabrication variations

Ouyang, B. (TU Delft ImPhys/Quantitative Imaging)
Xing, Yufei (Universiteit Gent)
Bogaerts, Wim (Universiteit Gent)
Caro-Schuurman, J. (TU Delft ImPhys/Quantitative Imaging)

2019

We propose a design method for silicon ring resonators (RRs) with a free spectral range (FSR) insensitive to fabrication variations. Two waveguide-core widths are used in the RR, with opposite signs of the group-index derivative with respect to the width. This results in cancellation of the width-dependent FSR changes. The systematic deviation of the realized width from the design width is determined and is used for calibrating the calculated relation of group index versus width. This enables a more accurate FSR value and well-aimed robust performance. We present two robust design examples. Experimental results match well with the predictions. For the deliberately introduced ±10 nm core-width change, the FSR variation of the robust designs is only about 30% of the value measured from the RR with a single core width. This design method can be used to improve the performance of photonic integrated circuits using multiple RRs. As the FSR of a RR is not easily tunable, the robust design is beneficial to applications where an accurate FSR is required, such as in microwave photonics.

OA-Fund TU Delft

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:dde061db-9180-497e-9475-c21cb5374d8c

https://doi.org/10.1364/OE.381643

1094-4087

Optics Express, 27 (26), 38698-38707

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2019 B. Ouyang, Yufei Xing, Wim Bogaerts, J. Caro-Schuurman