Design of narrowband Bragg spectral filters in subwavelength grating metamaterial waveguides.

Properties of reflection and transmission spectral filters based on Bragg gratings in subwavelength grating (SWG) metamaterial waveguides on silicon-on-insulator platform have been analyzed using proprietary 2D and 3D simulation tools based on Fourier modal method and the coupled-mode theory. We also demonstrate that the coupled Bloch mode theory can be advantageously applied to design of Bragg gratings in SWG waveguides. By combining different techniques, including judiciously positioning silicon loading segments within the evanescent field of the SWG waveguide and making use of its dispersion properties, it is possible to attain sub-nanometer spectral bandwidths for both reflection and transmission filters in the wavelength range of 1550 nm while keeping minimum structural features of the filters as large as 100 nm. Numerical simulations have also shown that a few nanometer jitter in the size and position of Si segments is well tolerated in our filter designs.