THE REFRACTIVE INDEX OF InP AND ITS TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE IN THE WAVELENGTH RANGE FROM 1.2 l m TO 1.

6 pm
Emilio Gini and Hans Melchior

WP-c 34

Institute of Quantum Electronics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland Phone: +41.1.633 21 67, Fax: +41.1.633 11 09, e-mail: gini@iqe.phys.ethz.ch
Abstract

Measurements of the refractive index of InP in the wavelength range from 1.2 pm to 1.6 pm have been carried out with a relative accuracy of 2 ~ l O -The refractive indices are determined from the measured ~. transmission wavelengths of an n-/nf-InP demultiplexer and their temperature dependence. The refractive indices are found to vary linearly with temperature with a coefficient between 2.3 and 1.9~10-~/K. The results are compared with data from literature.

I. Introduction The precise knowledge of material parameters such as the refractive index is the basis for the realization of integrated optical devices. Especially for the design of devices suitable for WDM, such as DFB-lasers or optical wavelength demultiplexers, values for the refractive indices with relative accuracies of better than are needed. Among the published data for InP, Pettit and Turner [ 11 give results with an accuracy of 7 ~ 1 0 - Recently ~. Martin et al. [2] reported data with an accuracy of better than We use a new method for the accurate determination of the refractive index of InP based on the measurement of the transmission wavelengths of an integrated optical InP demultiplexer.
11. Device Description

h h-Ah
Fig. 1 Illustration of the working principle of the grating demultiplexer: light from the input waveguide is diffracted in warelength dependent directions and focused onto the Rowland circle where it is collected by laterally spaced output waveguides. depends on the wavelength. The radius of the grating curve is twice the radius of the Rowland
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The integrated optical InP demultiplexer is based on a deeply etched reflective grating. !he working principle of the demultiplexer is illustrated in Fig. 1. In this construction, light originating from a point on the so-called Wowland circle [3] spreads out and is diffracted by a curved reflective grating. It is focused onto the same circle with a reflection angle that

circle and the grating points are obtained by projection o f constant distances d from the tangent at the pole onto the grating curve. Far ~ ~ transmission ~ the wavelength km (1)~ x at m ~ has to be fulfilled [43, where a and p are the input and output angles, respectively, neff is the refractive index of the medium in the Rowland circle and m the working order of the grating.

In the Rowland circle the light is vertically confined by a n-/n+-InP layer structure shown in Fig. 2. Also given is the calculated optical intensity distribution for both polarizations. The

air,

n= 1

Fig. 3 Photograph of the packa.ged InP demultiplexer module, with single mode fibers and temperature control. The size is 4 cm x 4 cm x 2 cm.

n
Y

>

i-lnP, n = n(lnP)

111. Measurements
Tlhe optical measurements were performed with a tunable external cavity laser source. Light from the output fibers was direclted to a photodiode and monitored by an optical speclmm analyzer with a resolution of better than 0.1 nm. The wavelengths with imaximum transmission of the four channels were measured for the grating orders m=30 to m=39 in the temperature range between 10 "C and 60 "C. Between the measurements, 10 minutes were allowed for temperature homogenization. The

InP:S,n,= n+ An An = -0.025

Fig. 2 The planar waveguide structure of the demultiplexer. Shown are the calculated optical intensity distributioins for both polarizations at h=1.55 pm.

birefringence can be neglected and the device can be regarded as polarization insensitive. Demultiplexers with four channels were used. More details about the design and performance of the demultiplexer are described in [5]. The device is packaged with single mode fibers and mounted on a temperature controlled copper block. A photograph of the module is shown in Fig. 3. The temperature is measured with a NTC resistor in the vicinity of the demultiplexer. A Peltier element below the copper block is used for heating and cooling.

r, 15:56
IJ)

2 1552

2 1548
10
20

30

40

50

60

Temperature ["C]

Fig. 4 Wavelengths of maximum transmission for four channels as a function of temperature.

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hysteresis between heating and cooling was less than 1 K. Fig. 4 shows the results of the measurements for m=30. The values of h, at 25 "C were taken for the determination of the refractive index of InP and for the temperature dependence linear fits of the measurements were used.

IV. Evaluation
1
I

The values of d, a and p were defined by the mask during demultiplexer fabrication. With ( 1), the effective refractive index of the planar waveguide structure (see Fig. 2), neff was calculated from the wavelengths with maximum transmission h,n.The refractive index of InP, n is then derived by solving the modal equation (2) [6] using (3) and (4). An = -0.025 was calculated according to [7].

1.3 1.4 1.5 Wavelength [pm]

1.6

Fig. 5 Determined refractive index of InP in the range from 1.2 pm to 1.6 pm at @ 25C. -+- this work, ........ [l], ----- [2] The data is best fitted with ( 5 ) , where h is in [pm]:
n2 = 7.233 + 2.34 x h2/(h2 0.382) -

2n x a x tA

= tg-'((n,, 2- n,2) 112/ a )

(5)

+ tg''((neff2-p/a)

(2)
(3)

n, = n + An

(4)

The differences to [ l ] are between 0.001 and 0.003 and lie within the accuracy of their fit of 0.007. We can not explain the offset of 0.009 relative to [2], also far more than their reported uncertainty of 0.0002. The refractive index of InP varies linearly with temperature (see Fig. 4). Fig. 6 shows the temperature coefficients in the wavelength range from 1.2 pm to 1.6 pm.

Equation (2) is only valid for TE polarization but the differences for TM polarization can be neglected. The accuracy of our measurement is estimated to be +0.0006. This is based on our accuracies of temperature (0.5 K), wavelength (0.2 nm), angles a and p, and grating constant d on the masks (0.3%0).Errors in An of 20% and in layer thickness t of 0.1 pm result in errors of only 0.0002 and 0.0003 in n,respectively. For the temperature dependence it is assumed that the variation of the refractive index of InP is the same as for neff The thermal expansion [8] of InP and hence the grating constant d is considered and accounts for about 5% of the observed wavelength shifts.

Wavelength [pm]

V. Results
The refractive index of InP at 25 "C in the wavelength range from 1.2 pm to 1.6 pm is given in Fig. 5. Fig. 6 Temperature coefficient of the refractive index of InP in the wavelength range between 1.2 pm and 1.6 pm. + this work, - least square fit, box [2]
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The quadratic least square fit of the data is given in (6) where y is in [K-1 and h is in [pm]:

r41

M. C. Hutley, Dzfraction Gratings,

y = {(A - 1.58)2+ 0.731 x 2 . 6 ~ 1 0 ~ ~ (6)

The spread of the values is assumed to be due to the differences of NTC characteristics. The value of ( ~ . O ~ + O . O ~ ) Xat Oh=1.56 pm ~ -~ reported by [2] is measured with a grating coupling technique. It is not obvious, that their data is corrected for the thermal expansion of their device. This fact would completely explain the disagreement with our measurements.

VI. Conclusion
We have determined with a high degree of accuracy the refractive index of InP and its temperature dependence in the wavelength range between 1.2 Fm and 1.6 pm by means of an optical demultiplexer in InP. The values presented are very suitable for the design of integrated optical components including filters in InP. The results are compared with values from literature. They agree fairly well with [l], but a discrepancy to [2] is observed. The method allows also for very accurate measurements of the effective refractive index of other planar waveguide structures.

(Academic Press, London, 1982) r51 E. Gini and H. Melchior: Polarization Independent InP Grating Spectrograph for Fiber Optical Links, Proceedings of ECZO9.5, Delft, 279 (1995) [61 T. Tamir (Editor), Integrated Optics, (Springer Verlag, New York, 1979) [71 B. R. Bennett, R. A. Soref, and J. A. del Alamo: Carrier-induced change in refractive index of InP, GaAs, and InGaAsP, IEEE Journal o Quantum f Electronics, 26, 113 ( 1990) R. Bisaro, P. Merenda, and T. P. Pearsall: The thermal-expansion parameters of some Ga,In,-,As,P,-, alloys, Applied Physics Letters, 34, 100 (1979)

Acknowledgment We acknowledge the support of the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science, Berne. Part of this work was performed within the ESPRIT project MOSAIC. References G. D. Pettit and W. J. Turner: Refractive index of InP, Journal o Applied Physics, f 36,2081 (1965) P. Martin, E. M. Skouri, L. Chusseau, C. Alibert, and H. Bissessur: Accurate index measurements of doped and undoped InP by a grating coupling technique,
Applied Physics Letters, 67, 88 1 (1.995)

H. A. Rowland: Preliminary notice of the results accomplished in the manufacture and theory of gratings for optical purpose, Philosophical Magazine, 13,469 (1882)

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