High-bandwidth and low-loss photonic crystal power-splitter with parallel output based on the integration of Y-junction and waveguide bends

A 1×2 power-splitter with parallel output that exhibits high-bandwidth and low-loss splitting for TE-polarized light is designed based on a photonic crystal slab in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material. The high performance is achieved by the integration of a Y-junction and 60° waveguide bends, which is designed to ensure single-mode operation, and keep the output channels of the power-splitter be parallel to the input channel. With a three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D-FDTD) technique, ultralow-loss output of the optimized power-splitter with normalized transmission above 45% (in the range 3.216±0.18 dB) is obtained in the high-bandwidth range 1472-1634 nm, which covers the entire C-band of optical communication. In addition, the simulation results demonstrate that when the manufacture error of the lattice shift (dx) is in the range of ±10 nm, the disturbance of the transmission and the bandwidth are 1.52% and 6.79%, respectively. Both the specific result and the general idea of integration design are promising in the optical integrated circuit (OIC) and integrated optical devices in the future.