New publication: "Microlenses on photonic integrated circuits enable flexible packaging and optical isolator integration"
In: Optics & Laser Technology
Open access link: https://lnkd.in/e95WjJfg

I am happy to announce this new publication in which we describe the #microlens platform developed at the cmst-microsystems group, Ghent University and imec . We explain that microlenses in combination with photonic integrated circuits ( #PIC ) facilitate the packaging process and allow integration of functionality (e.g. #isolators ) which is difficult to realize monolithically on chip. We discuss the microlens design, scalable fabrication, various approaches to integrate microlenses with PICs and elaborate on 2 use cases relying on microlenses integrated on PICs.

The first use case implements a 3.8 mm long working distance (WD) expanded beam interface with relaxed lateral alignment tolerance in O-band.

The second use case exploits the long WD to integrate an isolator stack between a PIC and fiber array (FA) in C-band. We achieved a very low insertion loss, large bandwidth and good extinction ratio.

These use cases highlight the remarkable versatility of microlenses, suggesting their potential value across a wide range of applications. If you have a specific idea where microlenses could make a transformative impact, I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to drop me a message and/or to repost!

Thanks to my co-authors Rik Verplancke , Yao-Tung Chang , Geert Van Steenberge , support staff and collaborators!