Abstract

On-chip silicon polarizers have been widely used in polarization controllers. However, there is limited research on all-silicon polarizer covering the whole optical communication band due to the strong waveguide dispersion for silicon waveguides. In this Letter, we demonstrated an all-silicon TE polarizer with high polarization extinction ratio and low insertion loss, working for the whole optical communication band. The device is based on a shallow-etched waveguide realized on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. The optical field of TE polarization is designed to be tightly confined in the shallow-etched silicon waveguide, while that of TM polarization is weakly confined. As a result, TE polarization propagates through the waveguide with low loss, while TM polarization leaks into the substrate and decays finally. The measurements show that a maximum insertion loss ${\lt}{0.25}\;{\rm{dB}}$ and polarization extinction ratio $({\rm{PER}}) \gt {{20}}\;{\rm{dB}}$ over an ultrabroad operation band from 1260–1675 nm have been achieved for the proposed polarizer.

© 2021 Optical Society of America

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