Optics Communications 312 (2014) 57–61

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Optics Communications
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom

A design of triplexer based on a 2
2 butterfly MMI coupler

and a directional coupler using silicon waveguides
Cao Dung Truong n, Tuan Anh Tran, Duc Han Tran
Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A novel ultra-compact triplexer is designed by basing it on a combination of a 2
2 generalized

Received 4 July 2013 interference-multimode interference (GI-MMI) coupler. The MMI is formed into linear butterfly shape
Received in revised form and a directional coupler using silicon rib waveguides. Firstly, the 2
2 MMI coupler is designed to
4 September 2013
separate the wavelength 1490 nm into one port and wavelengths of 1310 nm and 1550 nm into another
Accepted 5 September 2013
Available online 19 September 2013
port. Then a directional coupler is used to drop wavelengths of 1310 nm and 1550 nm to output ports
individually. Numerical simulations with three-dimensional Beam Propagation Method (BPM) are
Keywords: utilized to design and optimize the operation of the proposed triplexer.
Triplexer & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Butterfly MMI coupler
Directional coupler
Silicon
Waveguide

1. Introduction In this paper, we present a novel structure for ultra-compact

Triplexer plays a very important role in optical communication
systems e.g. fiber to the home (FTTH) systems, passive optical
network (PON) etc. Three wavelengths utilized commonly are 1310,
1490 nm and 1550 nm for upstream traffic, downstream traffic and
optional overlay services typically analog video in communication
windows. Hence, we need a device which can either multiplex or
demultiplex these wavelengths in practice. There are some types of
triplexers. One is to cascade filters such as thin film filters [1] but this
type has a drawback that it is difficult to integrate with other optical
device so it is expensive. Another is gratings e.g. arrayed waveguide
grating (AWG) [2] and Bragg grating [3] but their sizes are quite large.
The other types are either constructed by MMI coupler or planar
lightwave circuits (PLCs) techniques such as photonic crystals [4,5] or
directional coupled silicon rib waveguides [6].
Recently, devices based on MMI waveguides are useful elements
in photonics integrated circuits (PICs) because of advantages such as
high bandwidth, compact size, low loss and large tolerance for
fabrication. Therefore, an MMI-based device is a good candidate for
a triplexer. Silicon waveguide is a promising solution for MMI
couplers due to its advantages such as high contrast refractive
index allowing for high confinement of light and compact struc-
tures with ultra-sharp bending. Moreover, it is very adaptive with
CMOS technology [7] thus it is cheaper than the others.
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 84 936354555.
E-mail address: dungtc.vtn1@vnpt.vn (C. Dung Truong).
triplexer by using a 2
2 butterfly MMI coupler [8] and a direc-
tional coupler based on silicon waveguides. The MMI-coupler is
used to separate the wavelength 1490 nm to an output port and
two wavelengths 1310 nm and 1550 nm to the remaining output
port. The directional coupler is used later for dropping these two
wavelengths. 3D-BPM method [9] is used to design and optimize
the whole device.
2. Design and optimization
Fig. 1 shows the configuration of the proposed triplexer basing
on submicron silicon rib waveguides. Silicon waveguides are made
of the silicon on silica material with upper cladding of silica.
Refractive index of the silicon core layer nr ¼ 3.45 and the silica
cladding layer nc ¼1.46. By using the Sell Meier model [10], we
determine that the refractive index difference of silicon between
wavelengths 1310 nm and 1550 nm is negligible: ΔnE 0.02.
Hence, in this design, we can consider the refractive index of
silicon as a constant. The triplexer is designed to operate in TE
mode. The width w of the single mode waveguides is in the range
from 160 nm to 560 nm for satisfying the single mode condition
[11] for three wavelengths. We choose w ¼360 nm in the design of
the proposed device. By using the BPM simulation, we find that for
the total thickness of silicon guiding layer H¼ 0.4 mm and the slab
height h¼ 32 nm the optical field shows good performance while
propagating in the waveguide over three wavelengths. Finite

0030-4018/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optcom.2013.09.018
58 C. Dung Truong et al. / Optics Communications 312 (2014) 57–61

Element Method (FEM) simulation for fundamental mode of the
wavelength 1550 nm is shown in Fig. 1(b).
Basic operation principle of the proposed device is presented in
Fig. 1. There are two sections. The first one includes a butterfly
MMI coupler which is used to demultiplex the wavelengths
1310 nm and 1550 nm to the cross output port, while the wave-
length of 1490 nm is separated to the bar output port (output port 1).
The second one is composed a directional coupler based on Y
junction structure. This aims to separate wavelengths 1310 nm and
wavelength 1550 nm subsequently to output port 1 and output
port 3 of the device, respectively (see in Fig. 1(a)).
At first, we consider a traditional 2
2 GI-MMI coupler [12] with
the rectangular geometry structure to separate two wavelengths
1310 nm and 1490 nm. The MMI coupler is formed by two parallel
single mode waveguides which play the roles as access waveguides
(with the same geometric structure). The width W of MMI coupler
is chosen as 2.4 mm. We design the MMI coupler in order that
wavelengths 1310 nm and 1490 nm will be separated into either bar
port or cross port, respectively, while the wavelength of 1550 nm
will be led to any output port thereof. Due to the generalized
interference mechanism [13], self-imaging will be reproduced at the
length as three-times multiple of half-beat length. Hence, the
length LMMI of MMI coupler must satisfy following condition:
Where m, n, p are positive integers and m, n is parity (mþ n is an
odd integer), Lπ(λ) is half-beat length at the wavelength λ and it can
be determined by mode propagation method (MPA) [12]
4nr W 2e
LπðλÞ ¼ ð2Þ
3λ
where W e ¼ W þ ðλ=πÞðn2r  n2c Þ  0:5 (for TE mode) is effective width
of MMI coupler.
The half-beat lengths of wavelengths 1310 nm, 1490 nm and
1550 nm are calculated by the MPA method: 3Lπ(1310 nm) ¼67.67 mm,
3Lπ(1490 nm) ¼60.36 mm and 3Lπ(1550 nm) ¼58.3 mm. With these half-
beat lengths we can easily see the length of the MMI coupler which
must satisfy the condition in (1) is quite large. Therefore, we propose
a new approach by changing the geometric form of the MMI coupler
from the rectangular form to the linear butterfly form, we introduce
a 2
2 MMI coupler with the linear “butterfly” form [14] to replace
the rectangular form. Assume that, at half of LMMI length of the MMI
coupler, the width of the MMI region is determined by f.W. Here, f is
a positive rational coefficient (0ofo1). The expression of Lπ(λ)
should now be expressed as
4nr W e W 0e
LπðλÞ ¼ ð3Þ
3λ

LMMI ¼ m3Lπð1310nmÞ ¼ n3Lπð1490nmÞ ¼ p3Lπð1550nmÞ ð1Þ where: W0e is effective width at half of MMI length.
By this way, we impact to the interference mechanism in the
MMI coupler. The half-beat length is decreased a few wavelengths.
1310 nm 1550 nm 1490 nm We change the parameter f from 0.75 to 1 with the step as 0.005.
Port 1 Port 3 Port 2 By BPM simulation we change the length LMMI in a wide range up
Y junction to 1000 mm to find a suitable length so that performance of the
g=200nm
butterfly MMI coupler is good for all of three wavelengths when
Ls=30µm MMI acts as wavelength filters. As a result, at the coefficient f¼ 0.8,
we find that the length LMMI ¼361.5 mm is most suitable value to
achieve good performance as seen in Fig. 2. At this length, the
wavelength 1490 nm will be seperated to the bar port and
Lc=498µm wavelengths 1310 nm and 1550 nm will be seperated to the cross
port of the first MMI coupler.
Besides, we also implement the BPM simulation to find the
W optimal position S (the distance between access waveguides and
la=20µm
2×2 Butterfly the centerline of MMI region) of access waveguides before
GI-MMI connecting to the MMI region. We change the values of S around
7We/4 in the range from 0.5 mm to 0.7 mm. Fig. 3 shows the BPM
f.W
simulation for output powers of three wavelengths. We choose the
LMMI=361.5µm
W=2.4µm optimal value of position as 0.61 mm (as the marked point in
f=0.8
Fig. 3). In order to decrease the insertion loss and increase the
1/2LMMI confinement of light, linear tapers have been used to connect
between access waveguides and MMI regions. The length of taper
z waveguides la is chosen as 20 mm, their small bottom width is w.
la taper By using the BPM simulation, we obtain their optimal large bottom
width are 1.08 mm (see in Fig. 4).
w=360nm
Input y x Then, our remaining work is to design a coupler which has
been used for separating two wavelengths 1310 nm and 1550 nm

Air: n =1
360 nm
Upper cladding w

400 H
nm
Si: n =3.45 Core 32 nm h

SiO : n =1.46 Cladding 3 µm

Si: n =3.45 Substrate

Fig. 1. Proposed schematic of the triplexer based silicon waveguide. (a) Top-view
and (b) Cross-section and fundamental mode of input waveguide. Fig. 2. 3D BPM simulation for the length of the first butterfly MMI coupler varies.
 C. Dung Truong et al. / Optics Communications 312 (2014) 57–61
Fig. 3. 3D-BPM simulation for optimal position of access waveguides of the first
MMI coupler
Fig. 4. 3D-BPM simulation for the optimal large bottom width of tapered
waveguides.
into two output ports individually. Here, we propose the use of a
directional coupler to separate these wavelengths as seen in
Fig. 1a. Firstly, the structure of the directional coupler includes
two parallel straight waveguides whose length is Lc and whose gap
is chosen as g¼ 0.2 mm. Then each of straight waveguides is
connected to a sinusoidal waveguide which has the width as w.
Its length in z-direction is Ls and its distance in x-direction is
chosen as 0.6 mm (see in Fig. 1a). By using the 3D-BPM simulation,
we obtained the performance of the directional coupler that is
based on a Y junction form including two sinusoidal waveguides
would be better than the one based on one sinusoidal waveguide
and one straight waveguide. The BPM simulation also showed that
the length Ls should be 30 mm to achieve the best performance for
both wavelengths 1310 nm and 1550 nm while propagating over
the sinusoidal waveguide. Because of the mode coupled effect in
two parallel straight waveguides with the length of Lc of the
directional coupler, powers distribution at bar and cross output
ports are denoted by following formulas
 
2 πLc
P bar ðLc ; λÞ ¼ sin α þ ð4Þ
2LcðλÞ
 
πLc
P cross ðLc ; λÞ ¼ cos 2 α þ
2LcðλÞ
where λ is the operation wavelength of the waveguide, Lc is the
length of parallel waveguides in which have been connected
directionally together, Lc(λ) denotes the coupling length at the
wavelength λ and α is initial phase at the input of the directional
coupler.
With structure parameters of the directional coupler mentioned
above, by using the BPM simulation we found results: sin2(α1310 nm)
E0.734, Lc(1310) E29.6 mm for the wavelength of 1310 nm and
sin 2 (α 1550 nm ) E 0.5802, L c(1550) E 15.75 mm for the wavelength
59
1550 nm at the bar port respectively. These coupling lengths are
measured from 3D-BPM simulation results. In terms of mathema-
tical aspect, in order to separate wavelengths of 1310 nm and
1550 nm into output ports individually, following conditions must
be satisfied: when the wavelength of 1310 nm is dropped at the
bar port and the wavelength of 1550 nm is dropped at the cross
port, the maximal output power at bar port (¼1) and the minimal
one at cross port must be achieved. Hence, we obtained the
approximate expression as follow
Lc C24:4 þ a:29:6: C 9:75 þ b:15:75ðμmÞ ð6Þ
Where (a,b) is a parity integers pair. Expression (5) has a minimal
integers root pair as (a,b)¼ (16,31). So, the shortest length of the
directional coupler can be obtained as Lc ¼498 mm. This analysis
result is a coincidence with the BPM simulation. We simulated by
changing the value of Lc in a range from 0 to 500 mm with the step
size as 1 mm, we obtained the optimal length as 498 mm for the
best suitable performance of the directional coupler (ones can see
in Fig. 5). At this optimized length, the wavelength 1310 nm will be
dropped at the cross port and the wavelength 1550 nm will be
dropped at the bar port.
3. Simulation results and discussion
By using the 3D-FDTD method, we do simulate the optical
signal propagation for all ports of the triplexer. Fig. 6 shows the
electric field patterns for three wavelengths. For a triplexer, the
most important performances are insertion loss (I.L), extinction
ratio (Ex.R) and crosstalk (Cr.T), these are defined as follows:
 
Pd
I:L ¼ 10 log ð7Þ
P in
 
Pd
Ex:R ¼ 10 log ð8Þ
∑P u
 
Pd
Cr:T ¼ 10 log ð9Þ
∑P λk
where: Pin is the power in the input waveguide; Pd and ΣPu are
corresponding to the power from the desirable output waveguide
and the total power from undesirable output waveguides; ΣPλk is
total power from undesirable wavelengths lead to the desirable
output waveguide. Simulation results are presented in Table 1.
These show that the proposed triplexer has low insertion loss,
small crosstalk and high extinction ratio. Thus indicating the listed
parameters is important in manufacturing an optical triplexer.
We simulate the wavelength response at three output ports of
the triplexer. Simulation results are presented in Fig. 7. The
simulation data shows that: 3 dB bandwidth of three bands are
corresponding to 18 nm (1300 nm to 1318 nm) of 1310 nm band
(port1), 44 nm (from 1472 nm to 1516 nm) of 1490 nm band
ð5Þ
Fig. 5. 3D-BPM simulation for the optimal length Lc of the directional coupler.
60 C. Dung Truong et al. / Optics Communications 312 (2014) 57–61

Fig. 6. Electric field patterns for the proposed triplexer at three wavelengths: (a) 1310 nm, (b) 1490 nm and (c) 1550 nm.

Table 1
Output powers (normalized to the input power) of three output ports of the
proposed triplexer at three wavelengths

Wavelength (nm) Insertion loss (dB) Crosstalk (dB) Extinction ratio (dB)

1310 (Port 1)  0.52  25.87  18.42

1490 (Port 2)  0.21  13.35  24.42
1550 (Port 3)  0.58  23.39  14.09

Fig. 7. Wavelength responses of the proposed triplexer at three ports for thee
wavelengths

(port2) and 14 nm (from 1542 nm to 1556 nm) of 1550 nm band

(port 3). Hence, the bandwidth of the proposed triplexer is high.
Nevertheless the optical performances (in term of insertion loss
also about crosstalk) are better than some published ones realized
by planar lightwave circuits [7], [15]. In addition to that, the total
length of the presented triplexer is about 1100 mm, which is much
shorter than recent published one [16]. It is clearly appropriate for
compact photonics integrated circuits.
Next, we survey fabrication tolerances of the device following
the width and the length of the first butterfly MMI coupler as seen
in Fig. 8. Simulation data shows with insertion loss below 2 dB,
crosstalk and extinction ratio below  10 dB, width and length
tolerances are corresponding 7 8 nm and 72 mm, respectively.
These tolerances are quite large, thus the device can be easy to
fabricate with current photolithography technology [17,18].
Fig. 8. Fabrication tolerances for the proposed triplexer: (a) width tolerance and
(b) length tolerance.
Finally, simulation of fabrication tolerance of the refractive
index of core layer is also carried out. Simulation results are
presented in Fig. 9. We can see that if the difference of refractive
indices between core and cladding layers varies with amplitude of
0.0045 (about 1.7%), insertion loss, extinction ratio and crosstalk
will be below  2 dB,  10 dB and  10 dB respectively. Therefore
refractive mismatch of the device is suitable for fabricating the
device in the practice.
 C. Dung Truong et al. / Optics Communications 312 (2014) 57–61
Fig. 9. Refractive index mismatch of the proposed triplexer
4. Conclusion
We have introduced a novel compact triplexer by using a
butterfly 2
2 MMI coupler and a directional coupler that based
on silicon rib waveguides. The MMI coupler is used for demulti-
plexing the wavelength 1490 nm into one port and wavelengths
1310 nm and 1550 into another port, whilst the directional coupler
and sinusoidal couplers are designed to separate the wavelengths
1310 nm and 1550 nm. The proposed device has low loss and high
compactness. Simulation was implemented by using 3D-BPM and
EIM methods. It has shown that the proposed device has good
performances and tolerances.
61
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