UC San Diego

Contra-directional Bragg couplers are an integral part of many present and future on-chip optical systems. Suppression of side lobes of such filters is important for near and long term practical applications of optical devices in multiple disciplines. This thesis investigates the apodization of Bragg devices for side lobe suppression and points out some flaws in the design approach. Post numerical analysis, a method of cascaded coupler design is developed. Through numerical simulations, it is demonstrated that the cascaded coupler approach is a superior method for maintaining spectral purity of the coupled optical signal. A roadmap for device design to withstand fabrication errors and make the device tunable is also suggested.