Demonstration of a High-Performance 3 dB Power Splitter in Silicon Nitride Loaded Lithium Niobate on Insulator

Lithium niobate on insulator (LNOI) has emerged as a promising platform for photonic integrated circuits (PICs) due to the excellent electro-optic (EO) properties of lithium niobate (LN). However, such a platform still lacks many critical passive components with superior performance for constructing PICs. The 3 dB power splitters are one of the important passive components in PICs for separating and combining optical energy to construct the other crucial photonic devices such as Mach-Zehnder modulators, optical switches, and optical phased arrays, et al. In this contribution, an ultra-broadband and compact 3 dB power splitter is proposed and demonstrated using a tapered subwavelength grating (SWG)-assisted Y-branch on a silicon nitride (Si3N4) loaded LNOI platform. The SWG is used to alleviate fabrication challenges and reduce radiation loss while increasing the evanescent coupling. The simulation result shows an excellent operation bandwidth of 800 nm (from 1.2 to 2.0 mu m) at the insertion loss (IL) of 0.12 dB. The proposed device with a compact footprint (9.6 x 3 mu m2) is finally fabricated on a Si3N4 loaded LNOI platform, and the experimental result shows the IL of <0.2 dB in the wavelength ranges from 1.5 to 1.6 mu m, which makes it suitable for broadband PICs required for future communication systems.