Abstract
In this thesis, compact 2-by-2 and 4-by-4 trench couplers in the silicon photonics material system have been designed, fabricated, and tested. The couplers operate on the principle of frustrated total internal reflection, allowing a footprint significantly smaller than industry standard y-couplers. As photonic integration evolves, larger scales of integration will benefit from such reduction in component size. The couplers were manufactured at the AIM silicon photonics foundry using processes available to multi-project wafer runs. The characterization of the trench couplers involves novel use of U-turns to provide efficiency estimates. For this generation of trench coupler, the experimental loss is measured as -1.2dB and -3.2dB, respectively. Further development is encouraged by the fact that in the single-photon regime the 2-by-2 and 4-by-4 trench couplers are physical realizations of the Hadamard and Chrestensen gates which are ubiquitous to quantum computing.
Degree Date
Winter 12-17-2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.S.M.E.
Department
Mechanical Engineering
Subject Area
Mechanical Engineering
Format
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Stewart, Evan, "Silicon Photonics Trench Coupler Design, Foundry Fabrication, and Characterization" (2022). Mechanical Engineering Research Theses and Dissertations. 48.
https://scholar.smu.edu/engineering_mechanical_etds/48
