NOVEL DESIGN OF INTEGRATED OPTICAL BEAM-SPLITTERS USING SYMMETRICAL Y-BRANCH STRUCTURES

We propose a novel design and present a study of the operation of an integrated optical beam splitter using single-mode symmetric Y-branch structures. The phase-front accelerator (PFA) effect was employed so that asymmetric power division in the two output branches would be possible. The relationship between the power splitting ratio with respect to the axial displacement and the transverse tip offset of the PFA sector was investigated with the PFA refractive index as the parameter. The range of the power splitting ratio can be improved significantly if an asymmetric PFA sector is used instead of a symmetric PFA sector. In addition, the total power transmission of the beam splitter can be kept fairly constant over a wide range of power splitting ratios.