Experimental demonstration of an ultracompact polarization beam splitter based on a bidirectional grating coupler

Abstract
A bidirectional grating serving both, as a polarization beam splitter and a vertical coupler for Silicon on Insulator nanophotonic circuits is fabricated and characterized. The measured coupling efficiency is as high as 43%. The demonstrated device has a large 3-dB bandwidth and a high extinction ratio between two orthogonal polarizations.