Mode converter with sidewall-corrugated polymer waveguide grating

Abstract

We design and fabricate a sidewall-corrugated polymer waveguide grating to achieve conversion between the LP01 and LP11a modes. A typical fabricated device offers a conversion efficiency >99% with a bandwidth of 20 nm and a thermal-tuning sensitivity of -4.1 nm/°C over the S+C+L band. This mode converter could be integrated with other polymer waveguide devices to achieve advanced functions for applications in mode-division-multiplexing transmission systems.