Multimode optical waveguide enabling microbends with low inter-mode crosstalk for mode-multiplexed optical interconnects

A vertical multimode waveguide enabling micro-bends is proposed for mode-multiplexed optical interconnect links. The multimode waveguide is designed to be singlemode in the lateral direction and support higher-order modes in the vertical direction. The characteristic analysis for an SOI (silicon-on-insulator)-based vertical multimode waveguide with a ∼0.3μm × ∼1.5μm cross section is given as an example. The theoretical pure bending loss is negligible for all the lowest eight modes when the bending radius is even less than 5μm. When light goes through the structure consisting of a straight section connected with a bent section, it is found that some inter-mode crosstalk is caused by the significant mode hybridization happening in the sharply bent multimode waveguide. For the designed SOI-based vertical multimode waveguide, the inter-mode crosstalk is lower than -20dB even when the bending radius is chosen as small as R = 10μm, which is one order smaller than that for the traditional lateral multimode waveguide (whose minimal bending radius is about 130μm). The intermode crosstalk can be even reduced to -30dB when choosing R = 30μm. Such a multimode optical waveguide microbend with low inter-mode crosstalk is promising for realizing compact mode-multiplexing links.