A compact 1×64 optical power splitter using silica-based PLC on quartz substrate

•The performance of tilt Y-branch with different angles is discussed and optimized.•The final dimension of the 1×64 splitter is 21,000 μm×8600 μm.•66 chips are laid in a 6 in. quartz wafer.•The product ratio of Standard grade is more than 80%.

In this paper, a compact and low wavelength-dependence loss (WDL) 1×64 optical power splitter is fabricated using silica-based PLC technology on quartz substrate. The cascaded Y-branch structures are optimized in detail, and a compact 1×64 optical power splitter layout is obtained. The measured results show that the insertion loss (IL), the uniformity and WDL of the best results of all splitters are less than 19.2 dB, 1.0 dB and 0.5 dB, respectively, in the wavelength range from 1.26 μm to 1.65 μm, and the total product ratio of Standard grade in a whole 6 in. wafer is more than 80%. The results imply that our technology completely satisfies the need of mass manufacture.