Ultracompact Si slot waveguide-based polarization rotators.

ABSTRACT A novel silicon asymmetric tilted slot waveguide-based polarization rotator is presented. A large birefringence in the silicon slot waveguide facilitated a compact polarization rotator of subwavelength scale. A 1287 nm long TM to TE and TE to TM polarization rotator was achieved with an extinction ratio of 10 dB and an insertion loss of less than 5 dB at an operating wavelength of 1500 nm. Further performance improvement is possible for polarization rotator designed to work on TM to TE (or TE to TM) conversion: a 711 nm long TM to TE polarization rotator with 9.25 dB extinction ratio and 2.2dB insertion loss was also numerically demonstrated. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:779-785, 2015 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]