Design of Tapered Rib Spot-Size Converter with Double-Cladding Structure

A novel structure of spot-size converter is designed to allow low loss and large alignment tolerance between single-mode rib waveguide devices and fiber arrays theoretically. The spot-size converter consists of a tapered rib core region and a double-cladding region. Through optimizing parameters,an expanded mode field can be tightly confined in the inner cladding and thus radiation loss be reduced largely at the tapered region. The influence of refractive index and thickness of the inner cladding on coupling loss is analyzed in particular. A novel,easy method of fabricating tapered rib spot-size converter based on silicon-on-insulator material is proposed