Integrated photonic chip to chip interconnection utilising grating coupler technology

Integrated photonic systems become more difficult and complex nowadays. That imposes more complex solutions for interconnects, in particularly for dense interconnects framework. Motivated by the potential applications for dense interconnects, we presented a compact solution for dense on-chip interconnection utilizing grating-to-grating coupling technology. In this work, we designed, fabricated and performed measurement of compact chip-based fan-in/fan-out structures fabricated on a silicon chip for multicore fibers (MCFs) applications. We demonstrated a miniaturized chip-based component that can be applicable as an interposer for coupling light from 7-core MCF to individual channels on chip or as a chip-to-chip link between photonic integrated circuits (PICs). A simulated coupling efficiency of this interconnect at chip-to-chip interface has been shown as high as -5.09 dB. Combining compact fully-etched subwavelength grating couplers and flip-chip technology, we present an approach for optical interconnection between photonic chips that can operate over broadband spectral range with reasonable loss penalties and ease of fabrication. Our future efforts will be focused on a demonstration of chip-to-chip optical interconnection with integrated optical and electrical functionalities.