A compact optical polarization converter (PC) based on slot waveguide has been proposed in this study. Utilizing the high refractive index contrast between a Si waveguide and SiO2 cladding on the silicon-on-insulator platform, the light beam can be strongly confined in a slot waveguide structure. The proposed PC consists of a square waveguide and an L-shape cover waveguide. Since the overall structure is symmetrically distributed along the axis rotated 45-degree from the horizontal direction, the optical axis of this PC lies in the direction with equi-angle from two orthogonally polarized modes of the input and output ends, which leads to a high polarization conversion efficiency (PCE). 3D FDTD simulation results illustrate that a TE-to-TM mode conversion is achieved with a device length of 8.2 µm, and the PCE exceeds 99.8%. The structural tolerance and wavelength dependence of the PC have also been discussed in detail.

Integrated InP polarization converters based on half-ridge structure are studied numerically. We demonstrate that the fabrication tolerance of the half-ridge structure can be extended significantly by introducing a slope at the ridge side and optimizing the thickness of the residual InGaAsP layer. High polarization conversion over 90% is achieved with the broad range of the waveguide width from 705 to 915~nm, corresponding to a factor-of-two or larger improvement in the fabrication tolerance compared with that of the conventional polarization converters. Finally we present a simple fabrication procedure of this newly proposed structure, where the thickness of the residual InGaAsP layer is controlled precisely by using a thin etch-stop layer.

This paper describes the characteristics of a one dimensional narrow-wall slotted waveguide array with a single-layer linear-to-circular polarization converter consisting of a dipole array. An external boundary value problem of one slot and three dipoles, which approximates the mutual coupling between the dipole array and an edge slot extending over three faces of a rectangular waveguide, is formulated and analyzed by the method of moments; design of polarization conversion is conducted for this model as a unit element. If every unit element has perfect circular polarization, grating lobes appear in the array pattern due to the alternating slot angle: these are suppressed in this paper by changing the dipole angle and degrading the axial ratio of the unit element. The validity of the design is confirmed by the measurements. The dipole array has negligible effects upon slot impedance; the polarization conversion for existing narrow-wall slotted arrays is realized by add-on dipole array.