Fiber to Chip Fusion Splicing for Robust, Low Loss Photonic Packaging

Abstract: Silicon photonic devices are poised to enter high volume markets such as data-communications, telecommunications, biological sensing, and optical phased arrays; however, permanently attaching a fiber to the photonic chip with high optical efficiency remains a challenge. We present a robust and low-loss packaging technique of permanent optical edge coupling between a fiber and a chip using fusion splicing which is low-cost and scalable to high volume manufacturing. We fuse a SMF-28 cleaved fiber to the chip via CO$_2$ laser and reinforce it with optical adhesive. We demonstrate minimum loss of 1.0dB per-facet with 0.6dB penalty over 160nm bandwidth from 1480nm-1640nm.