Silicon-on-insulator-based antisymmetric meandering resonator: exploration and characterization

Abstract

In this work, we study an antisymmetric meandering resonator (AMR) photonic structure based on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform through both simulation and experiment in the near-infrared regime. The resonator is realized by coupling one- and half-meandering loop mirrors (MLMs) and fabricated using waveguides with 500 nm width and 220 nm height. The transmission spectra of the AMR exhibit features resembling electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Two identical directional couplers, with varying lengths, are employed to tune the spectral response. Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D FDTD) simulations correlate well with experiments, reporting a fiber-to-fiber insertion loss of approximately −17 dB, while the intrinsic AMR loss after de-embedding grating coupler losses is approximately 1.2 dB. EIT-like peaks begin to emerge at a coupling constant C of 0.39, with the highest quality factor of $$5 \times 10^{4}$$ 5 × 10 4 and extinction ratio of 17.5 dB observed at $$L_{c} = {30\,\mathrm{\upmu \text {m}}}$$ L c = 30 μ m ( $$C=0.94$$ C = 0.94 ). The AMR structure holds potential for applications in optical switching, wavelength division multiplexing filters, data networks, and optical sensing within silicon photonics platforms.