Grating-Coupled Silicon-on-Sapphire Polarization Rotator Operating at Mid-Infrared Wavelengths

We provide an experimental demonstration of mid-infrared polarization rotators built on a silicon-on-sapphire platform at the mid-infrared wavelength of 4.55 μm to enable integration of quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) and detectors with slotted photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) gas sensors for on-chip optical spectroscopy applications. The polarization rotators are essential to convert the preferentially transverse magnetic (TM) polarized light from a QCL to transverse electric (TE) polarization to interface with the preferential TE-guiding slotted PCW sensors. The polarization rotator consists of an adiabatic-tapered mode converter followed by a phase shifter and a multimode interferometer that effectively transfers energy from an input fundamental TM
₀₀
polarization to a first-order TE
₁₀
polarization that is then converted to the fundamental TE
₀₀
mode. Polarization-selective sub-wavelength grating couplers are designed and fabricated to effectively couple TE or TM polarizations at the designed wavelengths into and out of the polarization rotator device for efficient device characterization. TM
₀₀
-TE
₁₀
conversion efficiency of 100% is simulated. Fabrication tolerances in the phase shifter result in an experimental 80:20 splitting ratio of the measured output TE
₀₀
-polarized light between two output arms.