Abstract

Polarization control of light waves is an important technique in optical communication and signal processing. On-chip polarization rotation from the fundamental transverse-electric (${\mathrm{TE}}_{00}$) mode to the fundamental transverse-magnetic (${\mathrm{TM}}_{00}$) mode is usually difficult because of their large effective refractive index difference. Here, we demonstrate an on-chip wideband polarization rotator designed with a genetic algorithm to convert the ${\mathrm{TE}}_{00}$ mode into the ${\mathrm{TM}}_{00}$ mode within a footprint of $0.96\mathrm{\mu m}\times 4.2\mathrm{\mu m}$. In simulation, the optimized structure achieves polarization rotation with a minimum conversion loss of 0.7 dB and the 1-dB bandwidth of 157 nm. Experimentally, our fabricated devices have demonstrated the expected polarization rotation with a conversion loss of $\sim 2.5\mathrm{dB}$ in the measured wavelength range of 1440–1580 nm, where the smallest value reaches $\sim 2\mathrm{dB}$. The devices can serve as a generic approach and standard module for controlling light polarization in integrated photonic circuitry.

© 2017 Optical Society of America

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