Creating Automation to Couple Laser Light from an Optical Fiber to a Photonic Integrated Circuit

Coupling light between fiber optic cables and photonic devices on silicon chips is important for optical communications. Recently, vertically bent cantilever couplers have been developed that have better bandwidth and lower power loss than grating couplers, which are the current standard for fiber-to-chip coupling. A system that can perform butt-coupling between optical fibers and cantilever couplers on an integrated silicon photonic device is reported here. This system is able to perform butt coupling using vision processing and measured coupled power as feedback, and requires minimal human assistance. This system can be extended to automatically collect measurements from multiple devices on the same wafer, enabling large scale testing of devices with cantilever couplers in research and manufacturing.The College of Engineering Undergraduate Research ScholarshipNo embargoAcademic Major: Electrical and Computer Engineerin