A controllable coupling structure for silicon microring resonators based on adiabatic elimination

Abstract

Optical microring resonators are extensively employed in a wide range of physical studies and applications due to the resonance enhancement property. Incorporating coupling control of a microring resonator is necessary in many scenarios, but modifications are essentially added to the resonator and impair the capability of optical enhancement. Here, we propose a flexible coupling structure based on adiabatic elimination that allows low-loss active coupling control without any modifications to the resonators. The self-coupling coefficient can be monotonically or non-monotonically controllable by the proposed coupler, potentially at a high speed. The characteristic of the coupler when implemented in silicon microring resonators is investigated in detail using substantiated analytical theory and experiments. This work provides a general method in coupling control while ensuring the resonance enhancement property, making active coupling control in a resonator-waveguide system feasible.