Figure 1.
(a) Forward scattering design of a grating coupler. The grating is excited with a frequency above the photonic band gap. Thus, the coupler scatters into a positive scattering angle φ. The adjustment of the first slot in the grating cannot prevent a reflection at the waveguide-to-grating-boundary. (b) Backscattering design investigated in this work. Light from the waveguide is coupled at a frequency below the photonic band gap of the grating and is therefore scattered under a negative angle φ. The first slot of the grating is modified to avoid a reflection in this case. Half of the nominal slot width δ is filled with silicon.