Development and fabrication of V-grooves on silicon for autoalignment of optical fibers to integrated photonic devices

Resumo

The recent rise and development of photonic devices have created a need for efficient alignment techniques of optical fibers to integrated devices. The Device Research Laboratory (LPD) – IFGW-UNICAMP currently uses micropositioners for alignment. This project aims to develop and fabricate V-grooves as an alternative method. The grooves were fabricated on silicon wafers, using HF isotropic wet etching and KOH anisotropic wet etching. Etching rate for KOH and HF were determined as in 2.09 ± 0.08 ?m/min and 127 ± 4 nm/min, respectively. The first V-grooves were successfully fabricated and characterized by optical microscopy. The project is still ongoing, and fiber-to-fiber coupling tests using V-grooves are yet still to be done. Two optical fibers will be coupled using micropositioners and then the same fibers will be coupled using V-grooves. Both efficiencies will be compared in order to confirm V-grooves as an effective autoalignment method.