Abstract

Silicon-based optical media present several desirable properties for a wide range of applications. Herein, we propose a novel hybrid integration scheme that combines a silicon photonics platform and a 5.5%-Δ-silica planar-lightwave circuit (PLC) platform. By exploiting the performance advantages of each platform, we fabricated a polarization-insensitive low-crosstalk 8 × 8 silicon photonics switch butt-jointed with a compact 5.5%-Δ-silica PLC-based 100-GHz 8-channel arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). The device was driven by a smartphone-sized (9 cm × 13.5 cm) control board. The fabricated device exhibits a fiber-to-fiber insertion loss of 12.6 dB, an average polarization-dependent loss of less than 0.57 dB, and less than −40 dB leakage to non-target output ports. We also demonstrate two uses of the proposed device. The first is the “DEMUX and Switch” operation, in which the spectrally divided light by the AWG is routed to an arbitrary output port by a subsequent switch. The second is the “Switch and MUX” operation, in which arbitrary wavelengths from arbitrary input ports are merged by the AWG. No spectral degradation was observed in either operation. These results demonstrate the potential of the 5.5%-Δ-PLC/silicon photonics hybrid platform for compact, low-power, and fast-switching applications.

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