micro-racetrack resonator, inverse design, multimode waveguide bend, silicon photonics, microwave photonics, Applied optics. Photonics, TA1501-1820

Micro-racetrack resonators have become one of the key components for realizing signal processing, generation, and integration in microwave photonics, owing to their high Q factor, compact footprint, and tunability. However, most of the reported micro-racetrack resonators are confined to the single-mode regime. In this paper, we designed an ultra-compact multimode micro-racetrack resonator (MMRR) based on shape-optimized multimode waveguide bends (MWBs). Cubic spline curves were used to represent the MWB boundary and adjoint methods were utilized for inverse optimization, achieving an effective radius of 8 μm. Asymmetric directional couplers (ADCs) were designed to independently couple three modes into a multimode micro-racetrack, according to phase-matching conditions and transmission analysis. The MMRR was successfully fabricated on a commercial platform using a 193 nm dry lithography process. The device exhibited high loaded Q factors of 2.3 × 105, 4.1 × 104, and 2.9 × 104, and large free spectral ranges (FSRs) of 5.4, 4.7, and 4.2 nm for TE0, TE1, and TE2 modes, with about a 19 × 55 μm2 footprint.