Characteristic analysis of nanosilicon rectangular waveguides for planar light-wave circuits of high integration

When a full-vectorial finite-difference method is used, rectangular Si waveguides can be characterized for planar light-wave circuits of high integration. The single-mode condition for a rectangular Si waveguide is obtained first. The birefringence, which can be adjusted by modifying the thickness of the cladding layer, is also studied. For a nano-Si rectangular waveguide the pure bending loss is very small even for an ultrasmall bending radius (e.g., a few micrometers), and the transition loss becomes dominant. The width and height are optimized to minimize the bending radius for the requirement that the bending loss is smaller than 0.1 dB. Finally the coupling between two parallel straight waveguides is analyzed, and it is shown that there is an optimal width for the maximal coupling length. (C) 2006 Optical Society of America.