Compact multimode waveguide based temperature-insensitive Mach-Zehnder interferometer.

A novel multimode waveguide based Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is demonstrated on an SOI platform with the properties of compact footprint and temperature-insensitive operation. The device can achieve a thermal dependence around 13pm/°C in a wavelength range of 40nm. Owing to the utilization of one single straight multimode waveguide, the device is naturally immune to local temperature distributions. The measured results exhibit transmissions with an extinction ratio better than 8dB and a minimum insertion loss lower than 0.31dB over the wavelength range of 1545nm-1585nm. Moreover, the proposed device is compatible with CMOS process.