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A robust strategy for realizing highly-efficient passive alignment of fiber ribbons to integrated polymer waveguides

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Abstract

The connection between ribbon fibers and optical waveguides is an ideal method for achieving precise coupling with other standard devices and is a key technology for the practical application of various integrated optical devices. However, traditional methods are time-consuming, labor intensive, and prone to misalignment between the ribbon fibers and the optical waveguides. How to accurately and reliably aligning optical waveguides with ribbon fibers remains an urgent technical challenge in the field of optical transmission systems. Herein, this work presented here introduced a new cost-effective method for self-aligning optical fibers on substrate and achieving high-precision passive coupling between waveguides and fibers using layered structure design and selective exposure techniques. This method utilized a single selective photolithography step for structuring both the polymer waveguide and the U-grooves and thus minimizing the horizontal and vertical displacement of optical fibers and polymer waveguides. The related test results showed that the optical fibers and polymer waveguides were mechanically self-aligned within 4-μm accuracy in both the horizontal and vertical directions. The characterization of the fiber-to-waveguide link revealed total exceed losses of 0.13 dB per coupling interface. And the coupling loss ascribed to the misalignment between the optical fiber and the polymer waveguide was about 0.1 dB. The device performance remained stable after the thermal shock cycling and high-humidity/temperature tests, demonstrating excellent environmental reliability of the waveguide device. This work provided a fruitful attempt for realizing high-efficient passive alignment of array fibers to integrated polymer waveguides through robust stack design combined with selective exposure techniques.

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Acknowledgements

Financial supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2021YFB3700201 and 2023YFB3812103) are sincerely acknowledged. The authors are grateful for the support of Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Electronic Materials. The authors thank the Panasonic Electric Co., Ltd. for providing the waveguide materials. The authors also thank M.S Zhu Zhao Yan for English checking.

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The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shennan Circuits Co., Ltd, Gao Qiao Industrial Park East, Long Gang District, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Guo-Dong Wang, Zi-Yan Liang, Teng-Feng Yao, Hua Miao & Xiao-Feng Liu

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  1. Guo-Dong Wang
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  2. Zi-Yan Liang
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  3. Teng-Feng Yao
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  4. Hua Miao
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  5. Xiao-Feng Liu
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Contributions

The work was done by Guo-Dong Wang under the supervision of Xiao-Feng Liu. The manuscript was written and revised by Xiao-Feng Liu. All authors have provided helpful suggestions for the experiments. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript. Guo-Dong Wang contributed to Investigation, Methodology, and Writing—original draft. Zi-Yan Liang contributed to Investigation, Validation, and Formal analysis. Teng-Fei Yao contributed to Investigation. Xiao-Feng Liu contributed to Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing—review & editing, and Project administration. Hua Miao contributed to Resources and Supervision.

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Correspondence to Hua Miao or Xiao-Feng Liu.

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Wang, GD., Liang, ZY., Yao, TF. et al. A robust strategy for realizing highly-efficient passive alignment of fiber ribbons to integrated polymer waveguides. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 35, 1278 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-024-13059-5

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