Design and fabrication of arrayed waveguide grating multiplexers on silicon-on-insulator platforms

We report on the design, fabrication, and optical characteristics of arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) devices on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platforms to act as multiplexers in a hybridly integrated wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmitter for telecommunications and datacom applications. In order to achieve efficient coupling to laser diodes, SOI layers with 4-µm-thick Si were used to form rib waveguides. The AWG devices comprised eight channels with a channel spacing of 200 GHz around a center wavelength at 1550 nm. AWG integration with variable optical attenuators is demonstrated to add channel equalization ability.