Cost-effective Packaging of Integrated Nano Photonics

Cost-effective Packaging of Integrated Nano Photonics

Van der Neut, F.J.A.

Staufer, U. (mentor)

Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering

Precision and Microsystems Engineering

2011-03-30

Integrated nano photonic systems have a number of unique advantages and can be beneficial in a wide range of sensors, like optical strain gauges, pressure sensors and temperature sensors. Optical data transfer systems are taking over from electrical systems because the power (heat) dissipation is practically zero and the theoretical clock speeds are many orders of magnitude higher. But there is a challenge. Coupling an optical chip to its surroundings is very challenging compared to an electrical chip. This complexity is mainly caused by alignment and accuracy demands and is driving the cost price up to levels at which the commercial benefits of optical chips are no longer obvious, despite their many important technological advantages. Up to 80% of an optical system?s cost price consists of packaging, in which the coupling of the fiber to the chip is done per fiber, one by one: this method is time consuming and needs to be repeated many times, especially in mass production. Furthermore, this process is complex because the alignment of the fiber to the chip is done „active? (i.e. with the device in operation and using optical feedback to control the actuation towards an efficient final position) instead of „passive? (i.e. based on pure mechanical alignment features). This thesis focuses on reducing the packaging costs by improving the design of the assembly and its passive (instead of active) alignment. A number of methods are formulated and executed to accurately glue fibers in V-shaped grooves: this fiber-in-V-groove is a key element in many packaging methods, including the newly proposed concepts by this thesis. The results are positive and encouraging to continue further development of the proposed concepts, to create new passive aligned packages that still meet the challenging performance requirements from TNO and are commercially competitive.

Nano
Photonics

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f33681a7-b0e5-40d0-9380-128322104ba3

2011-06-24

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2011 Van der Neut, F.J.A.