Potential of commercial SiN MPW platforms for developing mid/high-resolution integrated photonic spectrographs for astronomy

Abstract

Integrated photonic spectrographs offer an avenue to extreme miniaturization of astronomical instruments, which would greatly benefit extremely large telescopes and future space missions. These devices first require optimization for astronomical applications, which includes design, fabrication and field-testing. Given the high costs of photonic fabrication, Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) SiN offerings, where a user purchases a portion of a wafer, provide a convenient and affordable avenue to develop this technology. In this work we study the potential of two commonly used SiN waveguide geometries by MPW foundries, i.e. square and rectangular profiles to determine how they affect the performance of mid-high resolution arrayed waveguide grating spectrometers around 1.5 $\mu$m. Specifically, we present results from detailed simulations on the mode sizes, shapes, and polarization properties, and on the impact of phase errors on the throughput and cross talk as well as some laboratory results of coupling and propagation losses. From the MPW-run tolerances and our phase-error study, we estimate that an AWG with R $\sim$ 10,000 can be developed with the MPW runs and even greater resolving power is achievable with more reliable, dedicated fabrication runs. Depending on the fabrication and design optimizations, it is possible to achieve throughputs $\sim 60\%$ using the SiN platform. Thus, we show that SiN MPW offerings are highly promising and will play a key role in integrated photonic spectrograph developments for astronomy.

Accepted at Applied Optics, Special Issue on Astrophotonics (24 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables)

References in corpus (24)

• The Gemini Planet Imager: First Light
• SPHERE: the exoplanet imager for the Very Large Telescope
• The Subaru Coronagraphic Extreme Adaptive Optics system: enabling high-contrast imaging on solar-system scales
• Gemini GNIRS near-infrared spectroscopy of 50 quasars at z>~5.7
• Photonic Lantern
• Observing Exoplanets with High Dispersion Coronagraphy. I. The scientific potential of current and next-generation large ground and space telescopes
• Arrayed Waveguide Grating Spectrometers for Astronomical Applications: New Results
• Characterization and on-sky demonstration of an integrated photonic spectrograph for astronomy
• Efficient injection from large telescopes into single-mode fibres: Enabling the era of ultra-precision astronomy
• First on-sky demonstration of an integrated-photonic nulling-interferometer: The GLINT instrument
• Developing arrayed waveguide grating spectrographs for multi-object astronomical spectroscopy
• First starlight spectrum captured using an integrated photonic micro-spectrograph
• Astrophotonic Spectrographs
• Enhancing stellar spectroscopy with extreme adaptive optics and photonics
• Multiband processing of multimode light: combining 3D photonic lanterns with waveguide Bragg gratings
• Demonstration of an efficient, photonic-based astronomical spectrograph on an 8-m telescope
• iLocater: A Diffraction-limited Doppler Spectrometer for the Large Binocular Telescope
• First demonstration of OH suppression in a high efficiency near-infrared spectrograph
• Performance limits of astronomical arrayed waveguide gratings on silica platform
• Astronomical photonics in the context of infrared interferometry and high-resolution spectroscopy
• Development of high resolution arrayed waveguide grating spectrometers for astronomical applications: first results
• Characterization of Single-Mode Fiber Coupling at the Large Binocular Telescope
• On the Instrument Profile of Slit Spectrographs
• Development of an integrated near-IR astrophotonic spectrograph

Cited by in corpus (7)

• 2023 Astrophotonics Roadmap: pathways to realizing multi-functional integrated astrophotonic instruments
• Flattening laser frequency comb spectra with a high dynamic range, broadband spectral shaper on-a-chip
• Design, simulation and characterization of integrated photonic spectrographs for Astronomy I: Generation-I AWG devices based on canonical layouts
• An on-chip astrophotonic spectrograph with a resolving power of 12,000
• Astrophotonics -- current capabilities and the road ahead
• Astrophotonic Technologies
• Simulating the Study of Exoplanets Using Photonic Spectrographs