Ultra-compact 90/spl deg/ bends and MMI couplers in silicon-on-insulator

Summary form only given. There has recently been a surge of interest in thin SOI-based integrated optics, where the silicon guiding layer is less than a micrometer thick. Optical devices on this platform can be potentially integrated with SOI-based CMOS technology, which is currently being favored for high speed and low-voltage applications. For integrated optics, equally important is the fact that the high refractive index difference between the Si-core and the SiO/sub 2/ substrate (/spl Delta/n = 2.0) can be utilized to significantly reduce the dimensions of photonic integrated circuits. The thin-SOI structures used in our study contains a 0.34 /spl mu/m Si guiding layer on a 1.0 /spl mu/m thick buried oxide layer.