Jds Uniphase Corporation

Erik W Egan

Jyoti Kiron Bhardwaj

Robert Brainard

David J Dougherty

Sanjay M Thekdi

Hiroaki Yamada

Zi-Wen Dong

Anantharaman Vaidyanathan

Thomas Nguyen

David K Nakamoto

Niranjan Gopinathan

Yingchao Yan

Suresh Ramalingam

Douglas E Crafts

Kenzo Ishida

James F Farrell

Steven M Swain

David J Chapman

Mark Brian Farrelly

A planar lightwave circuit includes at least one optical waveguide core, and at least one feature proximate the core having a stress-engineered property to balance stress and therefore minimize birefringence affecting the core. A protective passivation layer is formed over the core and the feature to be substantially non-interfering with the balanced stress provided by the feature. The stress balancing feature may be an overcladding layer formed over the core, doped to have a coefficient of thermal expansion approximately matched to that of an underlying substrate, to symmetrically distribute stress in an undercladding between the overcladding and the substrate, away from the core. The protective passivation layer is formed to have a coefficient of thermal expansion approximately matched to that of the overcladding. In one exemplary embodiment, the passivation layer is formed from silicon nitride. Related concepts of stress release grooves, and core overetching, are also disclosed.

Waveguide stress engineering and compatible passivation in planar lightwave circuits

A planar lightwave circuit includes an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), with input and output waveguides, partially curved array waveguides with respective length differences, and planar waveguide regions for focusing optical energy between the input/output and array waveguides. Optimal waveguide widths and spacing along the planar waveguide region facets are disclosed, which are largely determinative of AWG size and optical performance. Also disclosed are optimal cross-sectional waveguide dimensions (e.g., width and height); modified index of refraction difference between the waveguide core and cladding regions; and optimal array waveguide lengths, path length differences, and free spectral range. These features, especially when combined with advanced fiber attachment, passivation and packaging techniques, result in high-yield, high-performance AWGs (both gaussian and flattop versions).

Compact, low insertion loss, high yield arrayed waveguide grating

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Oakland, CA, United States of America

Erik W Egan