Surface-mountable silicon microlens for low-cost laser modules

A surface-mountable silicon microlens that can be passively aligned in a silicon V-groove is proposed. The microlens has a diffractive optical element on the end facet of a semicylindrical structure whose diameter is identical to that of a single-mode fiber (SMF). The experimental result of coupling efficiency between a distributed feedback laser diode and SMF shows low loss (-3.0 dB) as determined using the microlens. Monte Carlo simulations indicate that the microlens is suitable for low-cost and high-performance optical modules for metro networks.