Design and fabrication of ultra-small overlapped AWG demultiplexer based on α-Si nanowire waveguides

Abstract

A novel layout for an ultra-compact arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) demultiplexer is presented. The present layout has two overlapped free propagation regions, and is more compact than a conventional layout. Using αSi-on-SiO2 nanowire waveguides, an ultra-small 4×4 AWG (about 40×50 µm2) with channel spacing of 11 nm is fabricated and characterised.