Citation/Abstract

A monolithically integrated passive optical system consisting of a large aperture mirror and a Ga$\sb{x}$Al$\sb{1-x}$As slab waveguide has been designed and analyzed in this work. The system is analyzed using the beam propagation method (BPM) and two-dimensional gaussian optics. The analysis consists of propagating an optical beam with a gaussian intensity profile through the system and calculating the phase and amplitude of the reflected beam in terms of the mirror and incident beam parameters. Refractive index inhomogeneities inside the waveguide are used to model the effects of pin hole etch voids, molecular beam epitaxy oval defects, and mirror surface roughness on the mode and phase profile. This study gives new insight into how fabrication issues affect device performance in large aperture systems. Such large aperture designs are applicable to a various of monolithically integrated photonics signal processing and fan-out circuits.