Ultra-broadband and ultra-compact polarization beam splitter based on a tapered subwavelength-grating waveguide and slot waveguide.

In this work, we propose an ultra-broadband and ultra-compact polarization beam splitter (PBS) on a standard silicon-on-isolator platform. Assisted by a tapered subwavelength-grating waveguide and a slot waveguide, the working bandwidth of the directional-coupler-based PBS covers the entire O-, E-, S-, C-, L- and U-bands and the coupling length is only 4.6 µm. The insertion losses (ILs) of the device are simulated to be less than 0.8 dB and the extinction ratios (ERs) are larger than 10.9 dB at the wavelength range of 1260-1680 nm for both TE and TM polarizations. The experimental results show the average ILs are less than 1 dB for both polarizations at our measured wavelength ranges, which are consistent with the simulation results. It has the largest 1-dB bandwidth among all the reported broadband PBSs to the best of our knowledge.