Planar diffraction grating for board-level WDM applications

Optical interconnects in massively parallel processing (MPP) systems will require a variety of optical components regardless of the specific implementation of the optics in such systems. These components span a range of complexity from conceptually simple structures such as connectors to quite complex structures such as VCSELs. While numerous optical components have been developed for fiber-based systems, in general, many of these components do not adequately address the specific needs of MPP systems. Specifically, the components must provide specific performance requirements while also lending themselves to automated manufacturing techniques and being highly compatible with current electronic manufacturing techniques. In this work, we present a novel structure for the demultiplexing (and multiplexing) of guided-wave optical signals. This device has the unique feature of being suitable for single-mode as well as multimode systems. In addition, its structure is highly manufacturable due to its planar technology that does not require adding highly reflecting surfaces. The device works using the principal of total internal reflection off a grating surface. In this paper, we present a theoretical analysis of the structure and evaluate several performance issues.