English

Process Variation-Aware Compact Model of Strip Waveguides for Photonic Circuit Simulation

Optics 2023-04-27 v1 Applied Physics

Abstract

We report a novel process variation-aware compact model of strip waveguides that is suitable for circuit-level simulation of waveguide-based process design kit (PDK) elements. The model is shown to describe both loss and -- using a novel expression for the thermo-optic effect in high index contrast materials -- the thermo-optic behavior of strip waveguides. A novel group extraction method enables modeling the effective index's (neffn_{\mathrm{eff}}) sensitivity to local process variations without the presumption of variation source. Use of Euler-bend Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) fabricated in a 300~mm wafer run allow model parameter extraction at widths up to 2.5~μ\mum (highly multi-mode) with strong suppression of higher-order mode excitation. Experimental results prove the reported model can self-consistently describe waveguide phase, loss, and thermo-optic behavior across all measured devices over an unprecedented range of optical bandwidth, waveguide widths, and temperatures.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2301.01689,
  title  = {Process Variation-Aware Compact Model of Strip Waveguides for Photonic Circuit Simulation},
  author = {Aneek James and Anthony Rizzo and Yuyang Wang and Asher Novick and Songli Wang and Robert Parsons and Kaylx Jang and Maarten Hattink and Keren Bergman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.01689},
  year   = {2023}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T08:02:44.323Z