Optical Grating Coupling on Silicon Photonics based on Metallized Angle-Polished Fibers

This paper describes an optical coupling method based on angle polished fiber for grating couplers on silicon photonics. Compared with classic coupling methods, this approach minimizes the difficulty of alignment accuracy and facilitates the packaging between devices and waveguides. The procedures to obtain the polishing angle to improve coupling, metallization of the fiber surface to increase reflectivity, and experimental measurement of insertion loss are described. The results show that the polished fiber coupling method increases insertion loss by only 0.8 dB when compared to the standard grating coupler vertical coupling.