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.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Data availability
The data underlying this study are available in the article itself.
References
L. Brusberg, A.R. Zakharian, M. Neitz et al., Low-loss multimode glass waveguides with beam-expanded fiber connectors enabling on-board optical links [J]. J. Lightwave Technol. 38(6), 1350–1357 (2019)
X.F. Liu, R. Wang, G.D. Wang et al., Facile fabrication and optical properties of polymer waveguides with smooth surface for board-level optical interconnects [J]. J. Mater. Sci. Mater. Electron. 33(34), 26025–26039 (2022)
N. Kohmu, M. Ishii, R. Hatai et al., 90°-bent graded-index core polymer waveguide for a high-bandwidth-density VCSEL-based optical engine [J]. Opt. Express 30(3), 4351–4364 (2022)
X.F. Liu, G.D. Wang, Z.Y. Liang et al., Low-cost and facile assembly strategy for fiber ribbons and integrated optical waveguides with MT-ferrule-compatible optical connector, in 2022 23rd International conference on electronic packaging technology (ICEPT). (IEEE, 2022), pp.1–5
L. Brusberg, S. Whalley, R.C.A. Pitwon et al., Large optical backplane with embedded graded-index glass waveguides and fiber-flex termination [J]. J. Lightwave Technol. 34(10), 2540–2551 (2016)
M.O.F. Rasel, A. Yamauchi, T. Ishigure, Error-free three-dimensional multimode crossover graded-index polymer waveguides for board-level optical circuitry [J]. J. Lightwave Technol. 40(19), 6465–6473 (2022)
B. Lin, S. Sun, Y. Che et al., Few-mode 3-dB power splitters based on polymer waveguide directional couplers[J]. Opt. Laser Technol. 157, 108667 (2023)
T. Shiraishi, T. Yagisawa, T. Ikeuchi et al., Cost-effective low-loss flexible optical engine with microlens-imprinted film for high-speed on-board optical interconnection, in 2012 IEEE 62nd Electronic components and technology conference. (IEEE, 2012), pp.1505–1510
T. Barwicz, B. Peng, R. Leidy et al., Integrated metamaterial interfaces for self-aligned fiber-to-chip coupling in volume manufacturing [J]. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 25(3), 1–13 (2018)
N. Boyer, A. Janta-Polczynski, J.F. Morissette et al., Novel, high-throughput, fiber-to-chip assembly employing only off-the-shelf components, in 2017 IEEE 67th Electronic components and technology conference (ECTC). (IEEE, 2017), pp.1632–1639
Y. Taira, H. Numata, S. Takenobu et al., Improved connectorization of compliant polymer waveguide ribbon for silicon nanophotonics chip interfacing to optical fibers, in 2015 IEEE 65th Electronic components and technology conference (ECTC). (IEEE, 2015), pp.1640–1645
T. Barwicz, A. Janta-Polczynski, S. Takenobu et al., Advances in interfacing optical fibers to nanophotonic waveguides via mechanically compliant polymer waveguides [J]. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 26(2), 1–12 (2020)
M.L. Wu, C.T. Chen, P.K. Shen et al., Polymer-waveguide-based optical circuit with two vertical-transition output ports realized on silicon substrate for optical interconnects [J]. IEEE Photonics J. 5(3), 7901108–7901108 (2013)
J. Kremmel, T. Lamprecht, N. Crameri et al., Passively aligned multichannel fiber-pigtailing of planar integrated optical waveguides[J]. Opt. Eng. 56(2), 026115–026115 (2017)
A. Desmet, A. Radosavljević, J. Missinne et al., Laser written glass interposer for fiber coupling to silicon photonic integrated circuits [J]. IEEE Photonics J. 13(1), 1–12 (2020)
N. Kaou, V. Armbruster, J.C. Jeannot et al., Microconnectors for the passive alignment of optical waveguides and ribbon optical fibers, in Proceedings IEEE thirteenth annual international conference on micro electro mechanical systems (Cat. No. 00CH36308). (IEEE, 2000), pp.692–697
X.F. Liu, H. Miao, R. Sun et al., Fabrication and performance evaluation of flexible polymer waveguides for board-level optical interconnects [J]. Acta Optica Sinica 42(5), 0523001 (2022)
X.F. Liu, Z.Y. Liang, H. Miao et al., Fabrication of 45-degree integrated micro-mirrors for three-dimensional board-level optical interconnects realizing efficient light couling, in 24th International conference on electronic packaging technology (ICEPT). (IEEE, 2023), pp.1–5
A.L. Glebov, J. Roman, M.G. Lee et al., Optical interconnect modules with fully integrated reflector mirrors [J]. IEEE Photonics Technol. Lett. 17(7), 1540–1542 (2005)
M.L. Moynihan, B. Sicard, T. Ho et al., Progress toward board-level optical interconnect technology[C]//Photonics Packaging and Integration V. Int. Soc. Opt. Photonics 5731, 50 (2005)
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.
Funding
The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
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.
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
There are no conflicts to declare.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
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
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-024-13059-5