Adiabatic mode multiplexer for evanescent-coupling-insensitive optical switching.
A novel adiabatic mode multiplexer enables a 2 x 2 optical switch whose operation does not depend on accumulated phase due to evanescent coupling between waveguides. The adiabatic mode multiplexer has a negligible insertion loss over C+L bands and modal cross talk better than -40 dB for any polarization state. Mode multiplexing is achieved by adiabatic transition from the fundamental mode of the single-mode waveguide to the higher mode of the multimode waveguide. Experimental measurement results for a device realized in silica-on-silicon technology are presented. By directly measuring the nonadiabatic transition probability, we show that the adiabatic mode multiplexer operates in the Landau-Zener regime.
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