Ultrabroadband lattice filters for integrated photonic spectroscopy and sensing

Abstract

We report the design, fabrication, and measurement of waveguide lattice filters for use in integrated Raman- or fluorescence-based spectroscopy and sensing systems. The filters consist of a series of broadband directional couplers and optical delay sections that create an n-stage unbalanced Mach–Zehnder interferometer specifically designed to segregate pump light and redshifted signal light in the two output ports. We first report the design criteria for optimal filter performance. Then, we use these criteria with numerical beam propagation methods to design specific broadband couplers. The filters were fabricated by a photonic integrated circuit foundry and measured using white-light spectroscopy. We report both four-stage and eight-stage filters, with the eight-stage filter demonstrating a 190-nm-wide signal passband (1100 cm − 1) on the “through” port with <1.5 dB of ripple and a 17-nm-wide, 20-dB extinction band at the filter resonance.