Yuan Mingrui, Ma Mingyang, Xiao Huifu, Nguyen Thach Giang, Boes Andreas, Ren Guanghui, Cheng Lin, Mitchell Arnan, Tian Yonghui
Opt Lett. 2023 Sep 1;48(17):4713-4716. doi: 10.1364/OL.500232.
Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) platforms promise unique advantages in realizing high-speed, large-capacity, and large-scale photonic integrated circuits (PICs) by leveraging lithium niobate's attractive material properties, which include electro-optic and nonlinear optic properties, low material loss, and a wide transparency window. Optical mode interleavers can increase the functionality of future PICs in LNOI by enabling optical mode division multiplexing (MDM) systems, allowing variable mode assignment while maintaining high channel utilization and capacity. In this Letter, we experimentally demonstrate an optical mode interleaver based on an asymmetric Y-junction on the LNOI platform, which exhibits an insertion loss of below 0.46 dB and modal cross talk of below -13.0 dB over a wavelength range of 1500-1600 nm. The demonstrated mode interleaver will be an attractive circuit component in future high-speed and large-capacity PICs due to its simple structure, scalability, and capacity for efficient and flexible mode manipulation on the LNOI platform.
绝缘体上铌酸锂（LNOI）平台通过利用铌酸锂具有吸引力的材料特性，在实现高速、大容量和大规模光子集成电路（PIC）方面具有独特优势，这些特性包括电光和非线性光学特性、低材料损耗以及宽透明窗口。光学模式交织器可以通过启用光学模式分割复用（MDM）系统来增加未来LNOI中PIC的功能，允许在保持高通道利用率和容量的同时进行可变模式分配。在本信函中，我们通过实验展示了一种基于LNOI平台上非对称Y型结的光学模式交织器，在1500 - 1600 nm波长范围内，其插入损耗低于0.46 dB，模式串扰低于 -13.0 dB。由于其结构简单、可扩展性强以及在LNOI平台上进行高效灵活模式操纵的能力，所展示的模式交织器将成为未来高速大容量PIC中具有吸引力的电路组件。
