Antiresonant reflecting optical waveguides polarization beam splitters

Abstract

Three different configurations of polarization beam splitters based on antiresonant reflecting optical waveguide (ARROW) structures are proposed. The polarization splittings are attained by utilizing various characteristics of basic ARROW and/or ARROW-B. In comparison with conventional waveguides, ARROW structures utilizing antiresonant reflection as the guiding mechanism can have large core sizes compatible with single-mode fibers and, thus, provide better coupling. Design principles and characteristics of these ARROW polarization beam splitters are discussed in detail, and the simulation results show that all these devices have good polarization discrimination with crosstalk < -20 dB.