Polarization Control in Integrated Silicon Waveguides Using Semiconductor Nanowires

Ali Emre Kaplan; Valerio Vitali; Valeria Demontis; Francesco Rossella; Andrea Fontana; Samuele Cornia; Periklis Petropoulos; Vittorio Bellani; Cosimo Lacava; Ilaria Cristiani

doi:10.3390/nano12142438

Polarization Control in Integrated Silicon Waveguides Using Semiconductor Nanowires

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2022 Jul 16;12(14):2438. doi: 10.3390/nano12142438.

Authors

Ali Emre Kaplan^{1

2}, Valerio Vitali³, Valeria Demontis⁴, Francesco Rossella⁵, Andrea Fontana², Samuele Cornia^{2

5

6}, Periklis Petropoulos³, Vittorio Bellani^{2

6}, Cosimo Lacava^{1

2

3}, Ilaria Cristiani¹

Affiliations

¹ Photonics Research Group, Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
² Istituto Nazionale Fisica Nucleare (INFN)-Pavia Section, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
³ Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
⁴ NEST, Scuola Normale Superiore, Istituto Nanoscienze-CNR, 56127 Pisa, Italy.
⁵ Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Informatiche e Matematiche, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, 41125 Modena, Italy.
⁶ Department of Physics, University of Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy.

Abstract

In this work, we show the design of a silicon photonic-based polarization converting device based on the integration of semiconduction InP nanowires on the silicon photonic platform. We present a comprehensive numerical analysis showing that full polarization conversion (from quasi-TE modes to quasi-TM modes, and vice versa) can be achieved in devices exhibiting small footprints (total device lengths below 20 µm) with minimal power loss (<2 dB). The approach described in this work can pave the way to the realization of complex and re-configurable photonic processors based on the manipulation of the state of polarization of guided light beams.

Keywords: integrated photonics; nanowires; polarization control; silicon photonics.

Grants and funding

This work has been funded by the project QUANTEP, INFN CSN5 and by the MUR through the program PRIN2017 and PRIN PELM (20177PSCKT).