Compact vertical grating coupler with an achromatic in-plane metalens on a 220-nm silicon-on-insulator platform.

We proposed a new type of vertical grating couplers (VGCs) with a compact footprint on the 220-nm silicon-on-insulator platform. The overall size of the device containing the L-shaped coupling grating and the taper with achromatic in-plane metalens is only 45 × 15 µm, and the measured coupling efficiency at 1550 nm is -5.2 dB with a 1 dB bandwidth of 38 nm, around 1.6 dB higher than the VGC without metalens. The incidence angle mismatch has a 1 dB bandwidth of roughly 4°, whereas the displacement mismatch along the x-/y- axis has a bandwidth of around 3/4 µm. Furthermore, we experimentally show that such a design is compatible with VGCs operating in the S, C, and L bands.