Novel Passive Alignment Implementation using 41°-Cleaved Fiber Array for Silicon Photonic Micro-Transceiver

We propose a novel passive alignment method for a 41°-cleaved fiber array attached to a miniaturized silicon photonic optical transceiver. The cleaved end-face has an oval-shaped dent corresponding to the refractive index profile of the multimode fiber. Since the dent is visually recognized, the center of the core can be determined by image recognition. We assembled optical modules with 41°-cleaved fiber arrays to validate the proposed alignment method and found that the assembled module showed no major optical output degradation caused by passive alignment over the wide temperature range of 0°C to 125 °C. This alignment method is thus promising for manufacturing on-board and near-packaged micro-transceivers.