JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 20, NO.

10, OCTOBER 2002 1851

Single-Mode Condition for Silicon Rib Waveguides

Olly Powell

Abstract—The geometrical conditions required for single-mode

propagation in large cross-section silicon-on-insulator (SOI)
waveguides were investigated using the beam propagation method
(BPM). The cases of both vertical-walled and sloping-walled
(trapezoidal) rib structures were considered. In the trapezoidal
case some approximate methods were compared with the simu-
lated results. Expressions for the single-mode condition for both
types of waveguide were defined.
Index Terms—Beam propagation method (BPM), optical
propagation, optical waveguide theory, rib waveguides, silicon-
on-insulator (SOI) technology.

I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1. General structure of vertical and trapezoidal silicon-on-insulator (SOI)

rib waveguides.

S INGLE-MODE propagation is an important requirement

for optical waveguide devices for use with single-mode
fiber. It was first shown by Petermann [1] using a mode
matching technique, that rib waveguides of a large cross-sec-
tion area (compared to wavelength) can have single-mode
behavior. Later, this was applied by Soref et al. [2], to silicon
rib waveguides with vertical sides. Equations (1) and (2) were
claimed to give the conditions required for single-moded
behavior.
(1)
(2)
As shown by the dotted line in Fig. 1, is the total rib height,
is the slab height, and is the rib width. is a dimensionless
constant, given in [2] as 0.3. Equation (2) arises from the need
to be single moded in the vertical sense. If , any
mode with two or more maxima vertically will be leaky because
the bottom maxima will couple to the fundamental mode of the
surrounding slab [2].
The problem was then further analyzed by Pogossian et al. [3]
using the effective index method and a formulation previously
used for a single-mode condition for silica waveguides [4]. The
result was the same as (1) and (2) but with , which agreed
more favorably with experimental data from [5].
However, it has also been claimed [6], that the effective index
method is not suitable to predict single-mode behavior for rib
waveguides which support more than one mode in the slab re-
gion, as is the case here.
In Section II, it is explained how the beam propagation
method (BPM) was used to determine the geometry for
Manuscript received February 5, 2002; revised July 16, 2002. This work was
supported by the CRC for micro Technology.
The author is with the CRC for micro Technology, School of Micro-
electronic Engineering, Griffith University, QLD 4111, Australia (e-mail:
o.powell@me.gu.edu.au).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JLT.2002.804036
0733-8724/02$17.00 © 2002 IEEE
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single-mode propagation. Previously the BPM has been used
to demonstrate single-mode propagation for particular wave-
guides [2], [7], but not to establish the precise cutoff between
single-mode and multimode propagation.
In Section III the results of the BPM simulations are com-
pared to the formulae in [2] and [3].
Analysis is then extended in Section IV to the trapezoidal
structure shown in Fig. 1, with a side angle of 54.74 . The angle
arises from anisotropic chemical etching with the waveguide
aligned to the crystal direction [8]. Equation (1) has
been applied to this structure by defining as (see Fig. 1)
[9], [10], however, no justification was given for this choice.
Several authors have made investigations into the properties
of trapezoidal rib waveguides [11], [12] including some who
have suggested methods to transform trapezoidal structures
into “equivalent” vertical-walled structures [13]–[15].
It was shown in [15] that the propagation constants of the
first few modes of a trapezoidal rib and the equivalent straight
sided rib are equal. It would, therefore, seem reasonable that this
equivalent rib guide could be used with (1) to predict the mul-
timode/single-mode cutoff dimensions. Some of these methods
to find the equivalent guide are compared, so as to produce a re-
liable definition for the single-mode condition of the trapezoidal
structure.
II. SIMULATION BY THE BPM
All the simulations in this paper were for a SOI structure with
a total waveguide height of 10 m and variable slab height
and waveguide width or , as shown in Fig. 1. The cutoff
between single-mode and multimode behavior was determined
by setting the slab height at a fixed value, and then increasing
the width in increments of 0.1 m until the structure was able
to support the first-order mode.
A commercially available finite-difference beam propagation
method (FD-BPM) was used. The full vector formulation [16]
was tried, enabling the horizontal and vertical polarization
1852 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 20, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2002

Fig. 2. Initial estimate of the first-order mode for the trapezoidal case, with
=
h 6 and w = 15.

modes to be investigated separately. However, no observable

difference was found between either of the modes and the
scalar equivalent. This is not surprising since the mode size is
much larger than the wavelength. So the scalar formulation was
used throughout this paper.
The ability to support the first-order mode was determined by
inserting the scalar field associated with the component of a
fiber mode, then using an iterative BPM algorithm to find
an estimated first-order mode profile. An example from a trape-
zoidal structure is shown in Fig. 2. There was no point trying to
achieve convergence to an exact first-order mode, since by def-
inition this only exists for the case of multimode geometries.
The estimated mode was then propagated down the length
of the guide. The guided power, defined as an integral over the Fig. 3. (a) First-order mode not supported (only fundamental mode
supported). (b) First-order mode supported.
cross section of the waveguide, initially decreased rapidly as
leaky modes escaped. If the waveguide was single-moded, then
all of the power was in leaky modes and the decay continued III. ANALYSIS OF THE VERTICAL-WALLED RIB STRUCTURE
exponentially as in Fig. 3(a). (There was no power in the fun-
The BPM results are shown in Fig. 4. It is immediately ob-
damental mode since the initial estimate had a null in the center
vious that the simulated results match very well to the predicted
of the waveguide.)
curve with and poorly for the effective index method
If the waveguide was multimoded then eventually the guided
formulation .
power converged to some value, greater than zero as in Fig. 3(b).
The results in Fig. 4 are in disagreement with experimental
Distinguishing between multimoded and single-moded struc-
data from Rickman et al. [5], which was obtained by launching
tures is simply a matter of finding a suitable waveguide length
the fundamental mode off-axis. Further BPM simulations were
that allows the guided power to converge. As the waveguide di-
performed in this manner, showing that it was a very difficult
mensions approach cutoff, the length required for convergence
method to demonstrate single-mode propagation. This suggests
increases. In all cases, it was found that 8 mm was sufficient for
that the discrepancy may be due to experimental error in the data
the precision required here.
from [5].
In this way, for each slab height the cutoff width was
For the analysis presented in Section IV, a value of
obtained after taking several simulations (with approximately
is used.
30 min needed per simulation on a Pentium III processor).
Equation (2) was also checked using the BPM, (with a mode
Experimental error can be expected due to the finite increments
that was first-order in the vertical sense). It was found to be
in ( 0.1 m).
accurate for the range of of interest. It has been shown that
Sometimes the power in the multimoded structures actually
for very narrow waveguides the situation becomes
increased slightly after the initial leaky modes dispersed, as
more complicated [13] but this was not investigated here.
can be seen in Fig. 3(b). This is because the guided mode was
slightly wider than the width defining the limit of the waveguide
IV. ANALYSIS OF THE TRAPEZOIDAL RIB STRUCTURE
cross section ( or ). As the mode stabilized it sometimes
narrowed slightly, hence, the small increase in power. This made The results from the BPM simulations of the trapezoidal
no difference to the results. guide are plotted in Fig. 5. The curves made using (1) with
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POWELL: SINGLE-MODE CONDITION FOR SILICON RIB WAVEGUIDES
Fig. 4. Comparison between the two cutoff formulas for vertical-walled rib
structures.
Fig. 5. Comparing single-mode cutoff for different approximations for the
trapezoidal rib structure.
various estimates of equivalent vertical sided ribs. The BPM
data points were slightly more scattered than those in Fig. 4.
This is attributed to the rectangular grid approximating
sloping side-walls with a staircase structure. The effect was
slightly larger than expected considering the grid spacing was
0.2 m 0.1 m. Better performance may have been achieved
with the use a finite element based BPM, so that a triangular
computational mesh could have been fitted exactly to the
sloping walls.
It can be shown with simple trigonometry that for the slope
of 54.74 is related to by (3).
(3)
It is first noted that by defining the predicted curve
is quite close to the simulated points. The assumption , to allow exponential decay in the slab region. Such an approach
gave poor results, as did two of the approximate methods for
estimating . The approximate methods will be given in detail
in the following subsections.
A. Integration of Waveguide Power
This is a variation on an approach taken by Clark and Dunlop
[14], based on first-order perturbation theory. The equivalent
vertical rib structure is assumed to have a width between
and , thereby removing a piece of the trapezoidal one,
labeled “area 2” in Fig. 1 but adding an extra piece, labeled
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1853
“area 1.” The numerical method here is simply to adjust until
the total waveguide power from each of the two areas are equal
so their contributions to the propagation constant will approxi-
mately cancel. This is shown in (4)
(4)
where and are estimates of the field amplitudes for the
original and equivalent guided modes, respectively. In this case,
for simplicity, cosine functions were used in both and direc-
tions, with zeros at the interfaces.
The results from this approach, as shown in Fig. 5, have poor
agreement with the BPM results and other methods. Most likely
this is due to the oversimplified estimates of the mode amplitude
distribution. More accuracy could be found by using BPM or a
finite element method to accurately calculate the field, but this
would have to be done for every change in waveguide dimen-
sions and would therefore be very time consuming.
B. Effective Index/Matrix Transfer Method
This method recently proposed by Rui et al. [15], combines
the effective index method with a matrix approach, to find a the
propagation constant of a trapezoidal rib waveguide. Vertical-
walled ribs with varying widths can then be compared to find the
one with matching propagation constant. The same technique is
used here, but some improvements have been made, for clarity
the whole theory will be presented.
The cross section is discretized horizontally into layers,
with the th slice having a height , as shown in Fig. 6 for
the case . The effective index is calculated for each
layer separately, by treating it as a slab waveguide of width .
The problem is thus reduced to a one dimensional problem of
adjacent slab waveguides in the direction, similar to the
standard effective index method [17].
For each slice we assume a solution given in (5) for the
component of electric field or magnetic field, for the TE and
TM cases, respectively. Here and in the remainder of this paper
the TE formulation will be given, with the TM formulation sur-
rounded by curly brackets.
(5)
where and are unknown coefficients and is given by
(6)
with unknown propagation constant and effective index for
the th slice being represented by . In this way no assumption
need be made about the argument of in the complex plane,
except that and must have some real component so as
was used by McLevige et al. [18] for the problem of a four layer
slab waveguide. The longitudinal field components are
give by
(7)
The components given in (5) and (7) must be equal at each
interface between layers. This statement may be written as
(8)
1854 JOURNAL OF LIGHTWAVE TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 20, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2002

N slab waveguides, in this example

h = 6 and changing W .
Fig. 6. Conversion of the rib structure into
N = 11. Fig. 7. The widths and equivalent widths with

By substituting (5) and (7) into (8) a matrix expression is It is noted that in the case , (15) reduces to the eigen-
derived in terms of the unknown variables , , and . value equation for a three-layer slab guide [19] as expected. A
value of (suggested by Rui et al. [15]) was used for
(9) the calculations for Fig. 5.
The result, shown by the dotted curve in Fig. 5, was closer
where the matrix is given by to the simulated data than the integrated power method, but still
not as close as Marcatili’s method.
Further suspicions may be raised by comparing the equiva-
lent width with the width at which the field becomes
(10) nonoscillatory in the direction (where becomes real).
This leads to the recursive relation can be considered some measure of the mode width. It would
be hoped that the widths and would behave in the same
way with increasing . However, as can be seen from Fig. 7,
(11) remains at a fixed position between and for a given
By multiplying together the matrices , while does not.
, we arrive at (12). It should be noted
at this point that if two adjacent waveguides have the same C. Marcatili’s Method
effective index then the corresponding pair of matrices
Marcatili used mode matching considerations to develop a
and will cancel (give the identity matrix),
formula to convert an arbitrarily shaped rib guide into a ver-
and so have no effect on the total product. Therefore in the
tical sided one. The new waveguide had an adjusted total height,
trapezoidal case, the central section of the waveguide need
width and slab height. The exact formulas may be found in [13].
only be represented by a single layer of width as in Fig. 6,
This approach produced the closest fit to the simulated data, as
saving on computation time.
can be seen in Fig. 5.
It was also noticed that due to the large mode size with re-
(12) spect to wavelength the wavelength dependant terms , and
given in Marcatili’s formulation [13], were relatively small.
To give an exponential decay in the two outmost layers it is By ignoring these terms the resulting curve, plotted in Fig. 8
required that and . Thus, (12) may be separated (along with the results from the vertical rib case for compar-
into (13) and (14). ison), differed only slightly from the previous result (Fig. 5).
The new curve was an equally good fit with the simulated data.
(13)
Neither fit could reasonably be claimed better given the experi-
(14) mental uncertainty in the simulated points.
By ignoring the wavelength dependant terms, the formulation
By dividing (13) by (14) and may be eliminated
is considerably simplified. The equivalent guide with vertical
leaving (15), in which both sides are solely a function of the ,
walls may be found simply by adjusting both the width and
and so a solution may be found numerically. The propagation
height such that the aspect ratio width/height and the total
constant may then be found from (6).
area of the core will both remain unchanged.
The width of the original waveguide in this definition is
(15) and the area is all of the core material enclosed by this width.
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POWELL: SINGLE-MODE CONDITION FOR SILICON RIB WAVEGUIDES
translating reference [15], his supervisor Prof. B. Harrison for
his encouragement, and G. Powell for checking his grammar.
Fig. 8. The two waveguide cases and their best cutoff rules.
From geometrical considerations, it may be shown that the
equivalent guide will satisfy the required conditions if
(16)
Now by substituting and from (16) into (1) (with
), a new expression for the single-mode condition for the
trapezoidal large cross-section area waveguide is arrived at.
(17)
Equation (2) also applies here, for the same reason as with
the vertical structure. Furthermore, the situation in which this
equation may breakdown ( while [13])
cannot occur for the given trapezoidal geometry.
For practical purposes, the designer is actually more inter-
ested in the width at the top than , as this corresponds
to the width defined by the photo-mask layer. By using (17) to
establish , (3) can then be used to calculate . techniques for modeling guided-wave photonic devices,” IEEE J. Se-
V. CONCLUSION
The results from BPM analysis of vertical-walled ribs indi-
cate that the original formula given in (1), with as
proposed by Soref et al. [2], is the most accurate for predicting
single-mode geometry.
When designing ribs to be fabricated by wet etching, thus
having trapezoidal sides at the angle of 54 , (17) should instead
be used. This came from using (1) together with an equivalent
guide, defined to have the same cross-section area and aspect
ratio width/height.
Both cases demonstrate the inadequacy of using the effective
index method for the prediction of cutoff geometries of large
cross-section area rib waveguides.
The effective index/matrix transfer method was shown to
have some limitations, however it may still be useful simply
to predict the propagation constants for arbitrarily shaped
waveguide structures. This should be investigated further.
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1855
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank Dr. J. Han for his help with
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Olly Powell received the B.Sc. degree (Hons.)
in 1999 from the Department of Physics and As-
tronomy, University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He
is currently a Ph.D. degree candidate at the School
of Microelectronic Engineering, Griffith University.
His research interests include integrated optics,
MEMS, intermediate technologies, and bicycle
science.