Compact broadband taper for low-loss coupling to a silicon nitride photonic wire

We demonstrate a compact efficient waveguide taper in Silicon Nitride platform. The proposed taper provides a coupling-efficiency of 95p at a length of 19.5 μm in comparison to the standard linear taper of length 50 μm that connects a 10 μm wide waveguide to a 1 μm wide photonic wire. The taper has a spectral response > 75p spanning over 800 nm (spanning O, C & L band) and robustness to fabrication variations; ±200 nm change in taper and end waveguide width varies transmission by <5p. We experimentally report a taper insertion loss of <0.1 dB/transition and reduction in the footprint of the photonic device by 50.8p for the proposed compact taper in comparison to the traditional adiabatic taper. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed taper is the shortest waveguide taper ever reported in Silicon Nitride.