Abstract
We report on the design and experimental demonstration of a broadband silicon polarization beam splitter (PBS) with a high extinction ratio (ER) >= 30 dB. This was achieved using triple-bent-waveguide directional coupling in a single PBS, and cascaded PBS topology. For the single PBS, the bandwidths for an (ER) >= 30 dB are 20 nm for the quasi-TE mode, and 70 nm for the quasi-TM mode when a broadband light source (1520-1610 nm) was employed. The insertion loss (IL) varies from 0.2 to 1 dB for the quasi-TE mode and 0.2-2 dB for the quasi-TM mode. The cascaded PBS improved the bandwidth of the quasi-TE mode for an (ER) >= 30 dB to 90 nm, with a low IL of 0.2-2 dB. To the best of our knowledge, our PBS system is one of the best broadband PBSs with an ER as high as similar to 42 dB and a low IL below 1 dB around the central wavelength, and experimentally demonstrated using edge-coupling. (C) 2017 Optical Society of America