Mode matching technique for highly efficient

coupling between dielectric waveguides and

planar photonic crystal circuits
P. Sanchis, J. Martí, J. Blasco, A. Martínez and A. García
Fiber Radio Group, ITACA Research Institute, Universidad Politecnica de Valencia
Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia, Spain
jmarti@dcom.upv.es

Abstract: In this paper, a mode matching technique for highly efficient

coupling between dielectric silica waveguides (SWG) and planar photonic
crystal (PPC) waveguides based on setting localized defects in a PPC
tapered waveguide is reported. The introduction of multiple defects is
designed properly depending on mode mismatching arising from the
different widths of the SWG and the PPC waveguide. The procedure to
obtain the optimum defects configuration is described. Transmission
efficiencies above 80% at a wavelength of 1.55µm are reported improving
significantly the transmission efficiencies achieved with conventional PPC
tapered structures without defects. Furthermore, the feasibility of the
coupling technique for both input/output coupling over a large frequency
band is shown.
2002 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (130.3120) Integrated optics devices; (250.5300) Photonic integrated circuits

References and Links

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(C) 2002 OSA 2 December 2002 / Vol. 10, No. 24 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1391
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1. Introduction
The control of the flow of light due to the photonic band gap (PBG) effect in photonic crystals
makes these materials one of the most promising approaches to achieve highly integrated
photonic circuits. Although to achieve full control of light propagation a three-dimensional
(3D) photonic crystal is needed, planar photonic crystals (PPC) have been proposed to reduce
manufacturing complexity [1]. By creating line defects in PPC structures, well-confined
guided modes appear inside the PBG because light propagation is not allowed out of the
defect. One of the major challenges to develop reliable PPC circuits is the minimization of the
coupling losses between conventional silica waveguides (SWG) and PPC waveguides. Hence,
several coupling structures and techniques have been proposed in the last years such as
grating-coupler-based structures [2-4], tapered waveguides [5,6], a J-coupler structure [7] and
PPC tapers [8-10]. Among all the proposed solutions, one of the most promising approaches
are PPC tapers mainly due to its small coupling length and high coupling efficiencies
achieved over a large frequency range.
PPC coupling structures were designed and experimentally verified in [8-9] by varying
gradually the rod sizes for efficient coupling between PPC waveguides of different widths.
Furthermore, to couple a wide SWG to a typically narrower PPC waveguide several tapered
structures realized by broadening the PPC waveguide for efficient profile matching were
investigated in [10]. A novel coupling technique based on setting a single localized defect
within a 0.5µm-long PPC tapered waveguide structure was outlined in [11], which improves
significantly the transmission results using only a conventional PPC taper [10]. However,
wider PPC tapers are required for efficient mode profile matching to wider dielectric
waveguides. In this paper, it is shown that the proposed coupling technique can also be
employed with wider PPC tapers but, in this case, a new defects configuration must be
designed for the required PPC taper to maximize the transmission efficiency. The introduction
of multiple localized defects is investigated as well as their effect on the frequency
transmission spectra when both coupling sides (input and output) of a PPC waveguide are
considered. By setting properly the defects mode matching at the interface between the SWG
and the PPC waveguide is attained, which improves significantly the transmission efficiency
compared to the PPC taper without defects.
2. Coupling technique and structures
The PPC structure considered here is a two-dimensional (2D) triangular array of dielectric
rods of lattice constant a surrounded by a homogeneous dielectric medium. Rods have a
refractive index value of 3.45, which corresponds to Silicon (Si) at 1.55µm, and a radius of
R= 0.2a. The surrounding medium in the PPC has an index value of 1.45, which corresponds
to Silica (SiO2) at 1.55µm. This PPC has a PBG between the normalized frequencies
ω1=0.26(a/λ) and ω2=0.36(a/λ) for TM polarized waves, calculated by employing a 2D plane
wave expansion (PWE) method [12]. The PPC waveguide is created by removing all the rods
of a row along the ΓK direction. A single-mode guided by a truly PBG guiding effect appears
by forming the line defect in the PPC since the core of the PPC waveguide has a refractive
index smaller than that of the surrounding medium. A lattice constant value of 465nm is
chosen in order to fix the transmitted band around 1.55µm. For such lattice constant the PBG
ranges from 1.29µm to 1.79µm for TM polarized waves. The SWG has a dielectric index of
1.45, a width of w, and the surrounding dielectric medium is air.
The investigated coupling structure consists of a PPC taper (a discrete taper realized by
removing some of the rods of the original PPC waveguide) where a set of different dielectric
defect rods are introduced. Mode matching employing different PPC taper structures is
achieved by choosing the optimum defect parameters within the PPC taper. In this study two

#1790 - $15.00 US Received October 29, 2002; Revised November 19, 2002
(C) 2002 OSA 2 December 2002 / Vol. 10, No. 24 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1392
different PPC taper structures are considered: (a) a 2µm-wide/0.5µm-long PPC taper, and (b)
a 4µm-wide/1µm-long PPC taper. Both structures, employed to couple light both into and out
of a finite length PPC waveguide, are shown in Fig. 1(a) and Fig. 1(b), respectively. In the
former case, only one defect was set for coupling to a 1.5µm-wide SWG [11]. However, in the
case of coupling to a 3µm-wide SWG, the latter case achieves an efficiently mode profile
matching but, in this case, better coupling performance is obtained by setting two defects with
different radii (see Fig. 1(b)), as will be shown later.
4 PPC PPC
SWG Taper PPC Waveguide Taper SWG
3

1
X (µm)

0 IN 16-rows OUT

-1

-2 Defect
(r opt)
-3
-1 0 z opt 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
(a) Z (µm)

4 PPC PPC
SWG Taper PPC Waveguide Taper SWG
3
Def._1
2 (rint)

1
X (µm)

0 IN 14-rows OUT

-1

-2 Def._2
(r ext)
-3
-1 0z z int1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
(b) ext Z (µm)

Fig. 1. Schematic view of the structures considered. (a) a 2µm-wide/ 0.5µm-long and (b) a
4µm-wide/1µm-long planar photonic crystal (PPC) taper each one with a different defects
configuration are used to couple light both into and out of a finite PPC waveguide from a silica
waveguide (SWG). The lattice constant of the PPC is a and the radius of the rods is R.

3. Simulation results and discussion

Coupling losses between conventional SWG and PPC waveguides are mainly caused due to
the mode mismatch derived from the different widths and propagation mechanisms in SWG
and PPC waveguides. Although mode transformation is achieved by employing a PPC taper
[10], the condition of adiabaticity is not satisfied resulting in a mode mismatch that decreases
the coupling efficiency and increases reflection losses. The introduction of localized defects
within the PPC taper alters the modal properties of the guided mode so that mode matching

#1790 - $15.00 US Received October 29, 2002; Revised November 19, 2002
(C) 2002 OSA 2 December 2002 / Vol. 10, No. 24 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1393
can be achieved by determining the optimum number of defects as well as their optimum
parameters (radii and relative position within the PPC taper) improving, therefore, the
transmission efficiency. Multiple localized defects were also employed in PPC waveguides to
maximize the transmission efficiency in sharp bends [13]. But while the effect of introducing
defects inside a PPC waveguide was modeled by means of the transmission line theory [13], a
different approach is necessary for setting localized defects into PPC tapers due to the
variation of the modal properties along the taper. A straightforward procedure based on
numerical analysis is followed here. We first optimize the number and the relative position of
the defects that should be placed into the PPC taper, and further the transmission is improved
by optimizing the radius of each defect. The computational method used is based on a 2D
finite difference time domain (FDTD) algorithm [14]. Perfectly matched layer (PML)
conditions have been considered in the calculations to ensure no back reflection in the limit of
the analyzed region [15].
For the PPC taper shown in Fig. 1(a) a single defect with an optimized radius ropt=0.5R
and an optimum relative position of zopt=0.6a was set to achieve a transmission efficiency
above 80% for the input coupling from a SWG with w=1.5µm [11]. However, it was seen that
the transmission efficiency decreased as the width of the SWG increased, although it was still
more than 15% higher than the employed PPC taper without the defect. Figure 2 shows the
normalized frequency response of a 16-row PPC waveguide coupled to an input and output
SWG of two different widths, w=1.5µm and w=3µm, with and without the optimized defect
placed within the PPC taper.
1
PPC taper with defect (w=1.5 µm)
0.9
PPC taper with defect (w=3 µm)
0.8 PPC taper without defect (w=3 µm)

0.7
transmission

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0.27 0.28 0.29 0.3 0.31 0.32 0.33 0.34 0.35
a/λ
Fig. 2. Transmission spectra as a function of the normalized frequency for the structure shown
in Fig.1(a) taking into account different SWG widths, w=1.5µm and w= 3µm, and with and
without the proposed coupling technique.

The fundamental mode of the SWG is excited by a pulsed wave that propagates along the
z-direction (see Fig. 1) and the transmission spectra is calculated with the overlap integral
between the launched and the measured field at the output SWG. The resonances that appear
in the transmission spectrum of the PPC taper without defect are due to the Fabry-Perot-like
cavity created by the mode mismatching at the interfaces between the SWG and the PPC
waveguide and thus the number of resonances depends on the PPC length. When the proposed
coupling technique is employed those peaks in the response sharply diminish because a better
mode matching at the interfaces of the PPC waveguide is achieved. It can be obtained that an
average transmission level of 68.95% is achieved over the normalized frequency band ranging
from 0.29(a/λ) to 0.31(a/λ) (corresponding to a transmission band from 1.5 to 1.6µm for the

#1790 - $15.00 US Received October 29, 2002; Revised November 19, 2002
(C) 2002 OSA 2 December 2002 / Vol. 10, No. 24 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1394
lattice constant value considered) when the optimized defect is set and w=1.5µm. However,
when w=3µm the average transmission level decreased up to 45.45%, although clearly
improves still the 21.43% average transmission level achieved when the defect is not
considered.
The optimum relative position of the defect placed within the PPC taper shown in Fig. 1(a)
was obtained by varying the position of the defect along the z-axis and measuring the obtained
transmission from a SWG to a PPC waveguide of a monochromatic continuous-wave with
normalized power [11]. The same procedure was used for the 4µm-wide/1µm-long PPC taper,
so that a single defect with radius R was initially employed for scanning the positions that
result in relative maximum transmissions, at which the defects were set.
1 1

0.9 0.9

0.8 0.8

transmission
transmission

0.7 0.7

0.6 0.6
0 2 z/a
0.5 0.5

0.4 0.4

0.3 0.3 rint/R

0.2 0.2
rext/R
0.1 0.1

0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
(a) z/a (b) rdef/R
Fig. 3. (a) Normalized transmitted power as a function of the relative position of a localized
defect in the z-axis normalized to the lattice constant and (b) as a function of the radius of the
defects, rext and rint, normalized to the radius of the rods, R, and located the former at zext=0.59a
and the latter at zint=1.52a, both for the PPC taper shown in Fig.1(b).

The normalized transmitted power obtained as a function of z/a for the case of coupling
only one side of the PPC waveguide with the 4µm-wide/1µm-long taper to the SWG and for a
fixed normalized frequency of 0.3(a/λ) is shown in Fig. 3(a). It can be seen that there are two
z/a positions that provide relative transmission maximums: zext=0.59a and zint=1.52a. By
setting two defects at both maximum positions depicted in Fig. 3 and then optimizing their
radii the resulting transmission is further improved.

Fig. 4. Movies (both 1.6 MB) of the electric field intensity input coupling from the SWG to the
PPC waveguide employing the PPC taper shown in Fig. 1(b), (a) without and (b) with the
optimized two-defects configuration.

#1790 - $15.00 US Received October 29, 2002; Revised November 19, 2002
(C) 2002 OSA 2 December 2002 / Vol. 10, No. 24 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1395
 Figure 3(b) depicts the normalized transmitted power as a function of the defect radius
(rdef) normalized to the radius of the rods (R) for both defects the inner (rint) and outer one
(rext) regarding the PPC tapered waveguide. The optimization procedure employed has been as
follows. After fixing the two defects with radii R at the optimum z/a positions shown in
Fig.3(a), we first varied rint/R, maintaining the outer defect with a radius R. In Fig. 3(b) it can
be observed that a maximum transmission of 82% is achieved for a rint=0.37R (see lines with
circles in Fig. 3(b)) improving the 74% achieved if only one defect is considered, as depicted
in Fig. 3.
The transmission efficiency is further improved by optimizing the radius of the defect
located at zext=0.59a. Fig. 3(b) also shows the transmission as a function of the outer defect
radius normalized to the radius of the rods in the PPC (rext/R), by keeping fixed the inner
defect with the optimum radius calculated previously. In Fig. 3(b) (see line with diamonds) it
can be observed that the peak transmission improves up to 84% for a defect radius equal to
rext=0.86R. Therefore, by setting the two defects within the PPC taper at the optimum
positions and with the optimum radii the peak transmission at 0.3(a/λ), which corresponds to
a wavelength of 1.55µm for the lattice constant value of 465 nm, is enhanced up to 84%
transmission from a nearly 40% transmission when a taper structure with no defects is
considered. Figure 4 shows the electric field for the input coupling employing the 4µm-
wide/1µm-long PPC taper with and without the optimized two-defects configuration obtained
previously. It can be seen that a better coupling to the PPC waveguide is achieved when the
proposed coupling technique is employed. It should also be noticed that the standing-wave
pattern that appears in the input SWG even for the optimum coupling achieved with the two-
defects configuration shown in Fig. 4(b) arises from the fact that there is still reflection since
full mode matching is not achieved
1
PPC taper with defects (a/λopt=0.3)
0.9 PPC taper with defects (a/λopt=0.32)
PPC taper without defects
0.8

0.7
transmission

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0.27 0.28 0.29 0.3 0.31 0.32 0.33 0.34 0.35
a/λ
Fig. 5. Transmission spectra as a function of the normalized frequency for the structure shown
in Fig.1(b) for a SWG width of 3 µm with and without the proposed coupling technique. In the
former case, two spectra are depicted showing the influence of the normalized frequency
employed in the optimization procedure.

The transmission spectra against the normalized frequency for a 14-row-long PPC
waveguide coupled to both an input and output SWG with a 1µm-long PPC taper using the
two-defects configuration (see Fig. 1(b)) and without defects is depicted in Fig. 5. An average
transmission level of 71.31% is achieved for a normalized frequency range from 0.29(a/λ) to

#1790 - $15.00 US Received October 29, 2002; Revised November 19, 2002
(C) 2002 OSA 2 December 2002 / Vol. 10, No. 24 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1396
0.31(a/λ), which enhances the 17.98% average transmission level achieved with the PPC taper
without defects and also the 45.45% average transmission level achieved with the PPC taper
shown in Fig.1 (a) when the SWG width was 3µm. However, in Fig. 5 it can be observed that
the bandwidth is reduced when compared to the results provided in Fig. 2 although it still
satisfies bandwidth requirements for optical communications. This bandwidth reduction is
derived from the larger number of defects needed to achieve high coupling efficiency for a
wider SWG. Consequently the high coupling efficiency is achieved at the expense of
bandwidth which becomes more sensitive to the normalized frequency employed to optimize
the parameters of the defects. To demonstrate this fact the same optimization procedure was
employed but for a normalized frequency of 0.32(a/λ). In this case, the optimum two-defects
configuration was obtained for zint=1.56a, rint=0.43R and zext=0.74a, rext=0.86R. By using this
defects configuration the transmission spectra is shifted towards the normalized frequency
employed in the optimization procedure as it can be seen in Fig. 5.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, we report a coupling technique based on setting multiple localized defects
within a PPC tapered waveguide. The coupling technique achieves mode matching at the
interface between SWG and PPC waveguides reducing reflection losses and improving
significantly the transmission efficiency over a large frequency band. An optimization
procedure to chose the optimum number of defects and their radii, which will depend on the
width and length of the PPC taper, has been proposed. The simulation results show that by
setting properly two defects within a 4µm-wide/1µm-long PPC taper a transmission of 84% at
a wavelength of 1.55µm can be achieved, which sharply enhances the 40% transmission
obtained when no defects are considered. The proposed coupling technique can be easily
generalized and applied to different PPC tapers required for efficient mode profile matching to
SWG of arbitrarily width.
Acknowledgments
This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology
under grant TIC2002-01553. P. Sanchis acknowledges the Spanish Ministry of Education,
Culture and Sport for funding his grant.

#1790 - $15.00 US Received October 29, 2002; Revised November 19, 2002
(C) 2002 OSA 2 December 2002 / Vol. 10, No. 24 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1397