Polarization-independent grating coupler based on silicon-on-insulator

A novel and simple polarization independent grating couplers is designed and analyzed here, in which the TE polarization and the TM polarization light can be simultaneously coupled into a silicon waveguide along the same direction with high coupling efficiency. For the polarization-insensitive grating coupler, the coupling efficiencies of two orthogonal polarizations light are more than 60% at 1550 nm wavelength based on our optimized design parameters including grating period, etching height, filling factor, and so on. For TE mode the maximum efficiency is similar to 72% with more than 30 nm 1 dB bandwidth, simultaneously, for TM mode the maximum efficiency is 75.15% with 40 nm 1 dB bandwidth. Their corresponding wavelength difference between two polarizations' coupling peaks is demonstrated to be 35 nm. Polarization independent grating coupler designed here can be widely used in optical communication and optical information processing.