Design and optimization of optical power splitters for optical access networks

This paper aims to study the design, simulation, and optimization of low-loss Y-branch passive optical splitters up to 64 output ports for telecommunication applications. For a waveguide channel profile, the standard material silica-on-silicon is used. The Y-splitters are designed and simulated at telecommunication operating wavelength, lambda = 1550 nm. Except for the lengths of the used Y-branches, and a core size of the waveguides, design parameters such as port pitch between the waveguides and simulation parameters for all splitters are considered fixed. The simulation results are analyzed to determine the optimum length of the splitters and the optimum core size. Based on this optimization the total length of the highest designed 1 x 64 Y-branch splitter was reduced by 41.14 % for a waveguide core (5 x 5) mu m(2) compared to the length of splitter with a standard (6 x 6) mu m(2) core size.