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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kazakov, Ivan A., Popova, Ilona, Shipulin, Arkady
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.23394
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author Kazakov, Ivan A.
Popova, Ilona
Shipulin, Arkady
author_facet Kazakov, Ivan A.
Popova, Ilona
Shipulin, Arkady
contents We propose a novel bio-inspired design principle for the perfectly vertical grating coupler. The main idea of our design is to introduce anisotropy to the grating stripe to direct the light to one side of the grating. This grating design is easy to manufacture, only requiring a single etching step, and it is designed to efficiently couple vertically incident light. This makes it a good candidate for heterogeneous integration of light sources, especially VCSELs, on chip for applications in classical and quantum communications, LIDARs, sensing systems, and others. The grating coupler was designed for the SOI material platform with a central wavelength of 1550 nm. We obtained the efficiency of in-coupling from the SMF-28 fiber of 41% at vertical incidence and unidirectionality of over 10 dB, with a bandwidth of 50 nm at a 1 dB level in simulation. Experimental measurements confirmed unidirectionality, with observed unidirectionality of 12.80+-0.02 dB and a single-coupler insertion loss of 8.35+-0.02 dB around 1528 nm.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_23394
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Moth's eye-inspired perfectly vertical subwavelength grating coupler for silicon photonics
Kazakov, Ivan A.
Popova, Ilona
Shipulin, Arkady
Optics
We propose a novel bio-inspired design principle for the perfectly vertical grating coupler. The main idea of our design is to introduce anisotropy to the grating stripe to direct the light to one side of the grating. This grating design is easy to manufacture, only requiring a single etching step, and it is designed to efficiently couple vertically incident light. This makes it a good candidate for heterogeneous integration of light sources, especially VCSELs, on chip for applications in classical and quantum communications, LIDARs, sensing systems, and others. The grating coupler was designed for the SOI material platform with a central wavelength of 1550 nm. We obtained the efficiency of in-coupling from the SMF-28 fiber of 41% at vertical incidence and unidirectionality of over 10 dB, with a bandwidth of 50 nm at a 1 dB level in simulation. Experimental measurements confirmed unidirectionality, with observed unidirectionality of 12.80+-0.02 dB and a single-coupler insertion loss of 8.35+-0.02 dB around 1528 nm.
title Moth's eye-inspired perfectly vertical subwavelength grating coupler for silicon photonics
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.23394