Abstract
Optical isolators play unique roles in photonic circuits. We have developed an optical isolator with silicon waveguides, based on a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. The device characteristics were temperature dependent. We investigated the temperature dependence of the refractive index (
${\rm d}n/{\rm d}T$
) and the magneto-optical coefficient (
${\rm d}\theta _f /{\rm d}T$
) of a magneto-optical garnet Ce:YIG, and estimated these as
$9.1 \times 10^{-5}$
K−1 and 44
${\rm }^\circ \cdot {\rm cm}^{- 1} \cdot {\rm K}^{- 1} $
, respectively. We discuss the design of an athermal silicon waveguide optical isolator, in which the temperature dependences of the magneto-optical effect and refractive indices are canceled in the backward direction. The high optical isolation, greater than 20 dB, is demonstrated for temperature in the 20–60 °C range.
© 2015 IEEE
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