A Cost-Effective Edge Coupler With High Polarization Selectivity for Thin Film Lithium Niobate Modulators

Thin film lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI), as an emerging photonic material, provides a promising platform to realize compact, high-speed, and high-efficient electro-optic (EO) modulators. However, due to the large coupling loss caused by the large mode field mismatch between standard single mode fibers and LNOI single mode waveguides, edge or grating couplers are indispensable to LNOI modulators. In this paper, we propose a novel edge coupler employing staircase structure. The proposed coupler is feasible with i-line lithography and avoids high precise alignment. Moreover, such coupler can be applied to wafer-scale manufacture with low cost. The simulation results show a low coupling loss less than 1.60 dB can be achieved at 1.55 μm wavelength for transverse electric (TE) polarized light signals. Specifically, benefited from the novel staircase design, the proposed edge coupler shows a unique property of polarization extinction ratio larger than 10 dB, which will further improve the modulation efficiency and extinction ratio of the EO modulators based on X-cut LNOI.