Publications Details

Tapered-Rib Adiabatic-Following Fiber Coupler

Smith, R.E.; Vawter, G.A.; Hadley, G.R.; Sullivan, C.T.; Wendt, J.R.; Snipes, B.; Klem, J.F.

We present the design and experimental verification of a Tapered-Rib Adiabatic-Following Fiber Coupler (TRAFFiC). This device is a monolithically integratable structure fabricated in AlGaAs designed to increase the coupling efficiency of conventional optical fibers to tightly confined semiconductor waveguide devices. This approach offers the possibility of significantly reducing fiber butt coupling losses from the typical values of 7 to 10 dB to values of 0.5 to 3 dB. This long-standing packaging problem is one of the major impediments to the widespread acceptance of semiconductor-based optoelectronics. Moreover, the design can be implemented with minimal increase in fabrication complexity since it uses only epitaxial growth, lithography and etching.