Proposal for a simple polarization converter based on integrated optical ion exchanged waveguide

Author

Pengfei Wang ; Brambilla, G. ; Semenova, Y. ; Qiang Wu ; Jie Zheng ; Farrell, G.

Author_Institution

Optoelectron. Res. Centre, Univ. of Southampton, Southampton, UK

fYear

2010

fDate

24-27 Oct. 2010

Firstpage

441

Lastpage

444

Abstract

A simple, compact, low-cost electro-optic polarization converter based on a nematic liquid crystal (LC) sandwiched between two ion-exchanged glass channel waveguides is proposed. A three-dimensional (3D) fully-vectorial (FV) finite difference beam propagation method (FDBPM) is used to simulate this optical device. The performance of the proposed polarization converter is analyzed numerically at zero and 5 V applied voltage for the case of strong anchoring of LC molecules to the surface of the waveguide. The polarization conversion efficiency is -65% at a wavelength of 1550 nm. The total length of the directional coupler structure based converter is only 724 μm.

Keywords

electro-optical devices; finite difference methods; integrated optics; liquid crystal devices; nematic liquid crystals; optical directional couplers; optical glass; optical polarisers; optical waveguides; 3D fully-vectorial finite difference beam propagation method; directional coupler structure; integrated optical ion exchanged glass channel waveguide; nematic liquid crystal; simple compact low-cost electrooptic polarization converter; voltage 5 V; wavelength 1550 nm; Optical polarization converter; glass waveguide; ion exchange; liquid crystal;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

iet

Conference_Titel

Optical Communications and Networks (ICOCN 2010), 9th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Nanjing

Type

conf

DOI

10.1049/cp.2010.1246

Filename

5778508