High-efficiency grating couplers for pixel-level flat-top beam generation

Abstract: We demonstrate a kind of grating coupler that generates high quality flat-top beam with a small beamwidth from photonic integrated circuits into free-space. The grating coupler is designed on a silicon-on-insulator wafer with a 220 nm-thick silicon layer and consists of a dual-etch grating (DG) and a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR). By adjusting the structural parameters of DG and DBR, a pixel-level (6.6 um) flat-top beam with the vertical radiation of -0.5 dB and the mode match of 97% at 1550 nm is realized. Furthermore, a series of high-efficiency grating couplers are designed to create flat-top beam with different scales.