Silicon photonics provides the ability to construct complex photonic circuits that act on the amplitude and phase of multiple optical channels. Many applications of silicon photonics depend on maintenance of optical coherence among the various waveguides and structures on the chip. Other applications can depend on the modal structures of the waveguides. All these application require the ability to characterize the amplitude and phase of individual optical channels. Fourier imaging with high numerical aperture microscope objectives has been used to image the intensity of individual channels of photonic structures in both real and Fourier space. In other work, holographic imaging of multimode fibers has allowed modal decomposition. In this work we use interferometric microscopy to image the amplitude and phase of a variety of silicon photonic structures. These include a multimode interference splitter and a multimode waveguide under various excitation conditions.

Date Published: 27 February 2015
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 9367, Silicon Photonics X, 93670O (27 February 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2077267

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9367:
Silicon Photonics X
Graham T. Reed; Michael R. Watts, Editor(s)