Compact arrayed waveguide gratings for visible wavelengths based on silicon nitride

Abstract

We present two arrayed silicon-nitride-cored waveguide gratings (AWGs) that operate in a broad visible-wavelength range (400-800 nm), with the central wavelength 777 nm. Our Si 3 N 4-cored AWGs are designed to satisfy single-mode waveguide characteristics. They reveal a typical propagation loss 0.1 dB/cm and a bending loss 0.1 dB at the bending angle 90 o. One of our AWGs provides five wavelength channels with the bandwidth 15 nm at level of 3 dB, while the other is suited for eight wavelength channels with an improved 3 dB bandwidth amounting to 4 nm. The insertion losses for the both AWGs at the peak of the transmission spectrum are equal to 7.56 dB/cm. Moreover, our AWGs reveal good spectral characteristics and small enough sizes (0.02 and 0.20 mm 2 for the five-and eight-channel AWGs, respectively).