Forked Grating Coupler Optical Vortex Beam Interface for Silicon Photonics

The Forked Grating Coupler (FGC) is a novel silicon photonics device that can interface with Optical Vortex (OV) light beams. The FGC combines the idea of an apodized Bragg grating coupler with a forked hologram, creating a device that can efficiently couple selected OV modes at near-normal incidence into confined dielectric waveguide modes of a photonic IC. FGCs retain many of the advantages of grating couplers, including convenient chip placement, simple fabrication, reasonable bandwidth, small size, and process compatibility.