Ultrabroadband, compact, polarization independent and efficient metasurface-based power splitter on lithium niobate waveguides

We propose a metasurface-based Lithium Niobate waveguide power splitter with an ultrabroadband and polarization independent performance. The design consists of an array of amorphous silicon nanoantennas that partially converts the input mode to multiple output modes creating multimode interference such that the input power is equally split and directed to two branching waveguides. FDTD simulation results show that the power splitter operates with low insertion loss (< 1dB) over a bandwidth of approximately 800 nm in the near-infrared range, far exceeding the O, E, S, C, L and U optical communication bands. The metasurface is ultracompact with a total length of 2.7 mu m. The power splitter demonstrates a power imbalance of less than 0.16 dB for both fundamental TE and TM modes. Our simulations show that the device efficiency exhibits high tolerance to possible fabrication imperfections. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement