Volume 26, number 3

OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS

September 1978

BRAGG-REFLECTION APPROACH FOR BLAZED DIELECTRIC GRATINGS # K.C. CHANG and T. TAMIR Department of Electrical Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York, Brooklyn, New York, USA Received 3 July 1978 By viewing a dielectric grating in terms of an extended lattice structure, which lends itself to Bragg-reflection considerations, we derive simple criteria for achieving desirable blazing effects. These criteria are found to be very accurate for designing efficient beam couplers for integrated optics applications.

Optical waves supported by a dielectric grating in integrated-optics devices are often subject to considerable losses because the grating scatters energy into undesirable directions. Thus, in a beam coupler as shown in fig. 1, an incident surface wave is converted by the grating into two outgoing beams, of which one radiates into the upper air region while the second one radiates into the substrate and subsequently into the lower air region. However, usually only the former beam is utilized, so that the energy scattered into the substrate should be minimized. This can be achieved by "blazing" the grating, i.e., choosing a suitable asymmetric profile for the periodic layer, as already verified both theoretically [ 1 - 3 ] and experimentally [4]. The present work addresses itself to the choice of a suitable design for achieving this blazing effect. In a previous study, Marcuse [3] used a geometric-optical argument for this purpose, but he pointed out that his approach becomes unwieldy and inappropriate for deep grating grooves. In the present work, we use a Bragg-reflection analysis that applies to arbitrary grating heights; preliminary results indicate that this analysis is both accurate and simple to use. The principle of this Bragg approach is illustrated in fig. 2, which describes a rather general trapezoidal grating profile shown by the thick solid lines. Consistent with analytical results obtained by Tamir and * Work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ENG 74-23908 and by the Joint Service Electronics Program under Contract No. F44620-69-C-0047.

Air
. . . .

Film Substrate

Air

Fig. 1. Conversion of a surface wave into outgoing beams in a thin-film grating coupler. Peng [5,6], the dielectric grating exhibits the following properties: a) The layer of height tg acts as a periodic perturbation of the (volume) average dielectric constant eg inside the layer, i.e., this constant is given here by eg = ea = (d o + d l ) ( e f - e a ) / 2 d . (1)

b) The above periodic perturbation scatters an incident wave into directions determined by the grating facets, which are characterized by normal vectors G1, G2, 173 and 174 in fig. 2. To find the directions of constructive scattering, it is then useful to extend the periodic grating configura327

Volume 26, number 3

OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS

September 1978

--

d-

.~ "F~d2~"

d I --~" ~ do i~ -

~a

// / \ ~ . . - - - -.( \ / // \ / r------~_ \ \ \ // / //
\ \ \

/ / //

/ / -4 \

/~------(
K Jn
/ / /

/
\ \ \ \ // \ ;\ / //

/ //

//

--;
\

///

//

//

Fig. 2. Extended lattice description of a dielectric grating having a general trapezoidal profile. tion into the lattice structure indicated by the dashed lines. In such a lattice, Bragg-scattering theory implies that strong constructive scattering will occur along those directions that satisfy a Bragg condition with respect to any one of the following vectors:
G 1 = - (2mTr/d)(x
a 2 = (2n~/cl)(x

0 - z0
0 + z0

cot q~l),

cot 92),

fect of G 3 and G 4 can be easily eliminated by choosing triangular (rather than trapezoidal) grating profiles. However, the vector G 2 may then still account for appreciable scattering into the substrate unless it is chosen so as to be far from satisfying a Bragg condition. To apply the above principles to the case of a beam coupler, consider fig. 4 in which an incident s u r f a c e wave is desired to leak most of its energy into the upper (air) region. The appropriate incident wave is now shown by the arrow denoted b y ~ whose length is
~Z !

G 3 = - G 4 = (2prr/tg)Zo,

(m, n, p = +-1, +2, +3 ...),

(2)

where x 0 and z 0 are unit vectors along the respective directions. To simplify matters, we shall examine only the possibility of first-order Bragg interactions, i.e., m = n = p = 1. For an incident p l a n e wave given b y the vector Kin in fig. 2, the scattering by the extended grating is therefore described by the Ewald diagram in fig. 3. A Bragg condition for G i (i = 1,2, 3 , 4 ) is then satisfied if the vectorial summation of Kin and G i yields a vector K s whose vertex lies on the circle of radius k0V~g = 27r V~g/X. This is the case for G 1 in fig. 3, where strong constructive interference via Bragg reflection occurs into the upper region along the direction given by the vector K s. While this arrangement assures Bragg scattering respect to G1, leakage along K s will be further enhanced if the scattering due to the other vectors G2, G 3 and G 4 is appropriately reduced. The ef328

SCO Air

---

kX

subs!,o,e\

Fig. 3. Ewald diagram for scattering of a plane wave incident within the grating region shown in fig. 2.

Volume 26, number 3

OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS
i.O T
.7 ~ -x~"x-.~ _I.4~- ~- 4~--z-~

September 1978
"f .. r' - -

x" , ~ - - o - - - o - TMo

'x

UO ,,j~" "~
~"

Brogg condition:
t g IX = .74

//
.4 X

....

Exact
Perturbation

.02

I
.o,

Qx

,' /

x//w~ /

\Fo

"-\ t',

.oo,

;/

"-- "",,

tg~O

Mr

.~

Fig. 4. Effect of varying G2 in a triangular grating. In this case, GI has already been adjusted to satisfy a Bragg condition for scattering an incident surface wave into the upper (air) region.

.002

~____

/ /

/ / / ~

////
tglX

larger than k 0 , ~ g . Again, we choose G 1 to produce Bragg scattering into the upper (air) region and examine possible choices for G2 assuming now a triangular grating profile. It is then clear that, for a symmetric grating indicated by G2 a nearly equal amount of (4), scattering should occur into the air and substrate regions, because both G I and G(24)satisfy a Bragg condition. Other typical situations for G 2 are shown in fig.4 by G2()through G (3). Of all these forms, 172(0)= G 1 would be optimal because both 171 and G 2 would then satisfy the same Bragg condition for scattering into the air region only. However, 172 ~ 171 requires very thick gratings, such as the holographic gratings used by Kogelnik and Sosnowsky [7]. For milled or etched gratings, on the other hand, the situation shown by G2(2) appears to be most realistic and this corresponds to a right-angled triangle. In such a case, 172 = 172(2) ends sufficiently far from the Bragg circle so that energy should be scattered primarily by G 1 only. The preceding arguments indicate that blazing should be effectively obtained by a grating profile having a right-angled triangular shape with its two facets satisfying the construction for 171 and G2(2)shown in fig. 4. It is then easily found that the required rela-

.001

.2

I .4

I .6

I .8

| I0

I 1.2

Fig. 5. Variation of efficiency r~a and leakage coupling aX in a right-angle triangular dielectric grating on which a surface

wave is incident. tionship for that desired blazed grating is given by

tg/)t = [eg (3/k 0 ~ X/d)2] -1/2.

(3)

To verify this simple design criterion, we have calculated the efficiency r~a of scattering into the air region for the grating shown in fig. 5, where r/a is the ratio of the energy of the upper air beam and the total scattered energy. The construction prescribed by eq. (3) predicts an optimum condition at tg/X = 0.74, as indicated by the arrow in fig. 5. Exact calculations show that r~ then equals 0.95 and 0.90 for TE 0 and TM0 modes, a respectively. There appears, therefore, to be aft excellent agreement between the simple Bragg-scattering argument for determining the grating profile and the actual result. In addition, we also note that: a) Good blazing is achieved for a wide range of values, roughly 0.5 < tg/?t< 1.1. This is explained by the fact that G 1 need not satisfy the Bragg condition exactly; its vertex must only be sufficiently close to the 329

Volume 26, number 3

OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS

September 1978

large circle shown in fig. 3, say, within the region denoted by the smaller circle shown dashed. b) In the above range of values for both TE 0 and TM 0 modes exhibit strong blazing. This is expected because the propagation factors/3 for these modes are nearly equal, so that the Bragg construction in fig. 4 holds for both modes. Fig. 5 also shows curves of the leakage parameter aX, which is proportional to the beam coupling factor. This parameter was found exactly by a numerical method (shown dashed) and by a simpler perturbation method [6], (shown solid). It is interesting to note that leakage is larger in the range of for which blazing is maximum. Dielectric gratings having other parameters are cur-

rently under investigation in order to further examine the generality of the present results.

tg/X,

References [1] S.T. Peng and T. Tamir, Optics Commun. 11 (1974) 405. [2] W. Streifer, D.R. Scifres and R.D. Burnham, IEEE J. QE-12 (1976) 494. [3] D. Marcuse, Bell Syst. Tech. J. 55 (1976) 1295. [4] T. Aoyagi, Y. Aoyagi and S. Namba, Appl. Phys. Lett. 29 (1976) 303. [5] T. Tamir and S.T. Peng, Network methods for integrated optic devices, Proc. Intern. Conf. Holography and Data Processing (Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1977) p. 437. [6] T. Tamir and S.T. Peng, Appl. Phys. 14 (1977) 235. [7] H. Kogelnik and T.P. Sosnowsky, Bell Syst. Tech. J. 49 (1970) 1602.

tg/X

330