Design, Modeling and Simulation of Planar Waveguide Optical Splitter

Abstract

<p> 1-by-N optical power splitters are primary components in the field of integrated optics and optical transmission systems. Planar waveguide optical power splitters are key devices to realize low-cost optical transmission systems through photonic integration. The goal of this thesis is to design, model and simulate a novel planar waveguide optical power splitter for optical transmission systems and Fiber to the Home (FTTH) networks.</p> <p> The first chapter is an introduction. This chapter gives the background of power splitter, reviews the existing devices and explains why our novel design is needed.</p> <p> The idea of this novel power splitter is presented in Chapter 2, including analytical formulations, theoretical calculations and designs. This serves as a theoretical foundation for the development and verification of different parts presented in Chapter 3. The novel power splitter design is composed of a series of waveguide lenses and waveguide phase shifts. The analytical formulations are derived and intensive numerical simulations are performed to verify and investigate this new power splitter. Also the conventional Beam Propagation Method (BPM) is studied in this chapter, which provides a numerical preparation for the device simulation and design in the subsequent chapter.</p> <p> The design results are shown in Chapter 4. The novel power splitter design predicts good performance with more compact device size, better output and smaller wavelength dependence. This chapter demonstrated the possibility of new power splitter working as a better approach to the existing MMI or other structures.</p> <p> Finally, Chapter 5 gives a conclusion to this thesis. The limitations of this work are presented and the future works are proposed.</p>