SOI 2D photonic crystals for microphotonic integrated circuits

We review recent achievements in fabrication of silicon-on-insulator 2D photonic crystals compatible with microelectronics processing will be reported. We first address the problem of radiation and propagation losses by quantitative measurements of transmission spectra for various designs of photonic crystal waveguides. In optimized structures record low propagation losses of 20 dB/cm are reported. Next we show the way to effectively couple the light from the fiber to high index microphotonic circuits and photonic crystals by proper design of mode converter and butt-coupler.