Impact of Various Parameters on the Performance of Optical Directional Coupler

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents the impact of optical coupler parameters like length of coupling region, spacing between the coupling region and materials profile on the performance of optical directional coupler (ODC) based on Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). On photonic chips a directional coupler is an essential photonic device used to design the various mixers, balanced power amplifiers, modulators, measurements system, circularly polarized antennas and beam-forming networks. It is observed that the least excess loss (0.2 dB) is achieved at 1550 nm input transmission wavelength using titanium dioxide (TiO2) profile material with value of coupling length (8.58 µm), spacing between the two coupling slits (1.55 µm) and input transmission power (0.1 W/m). The received optical power at both output port of ODC is varied due to the variations in spacing between the two couplings slits and length of coupling region.