The need for tunable optical transmitters in optical networking is growing at a rapid rate. A tunable optical transmitter is the combination of a tunable laser, an isolator, and a modulator. Although today lasers and modulators could be integrated together on a single chip, an integrated component of this type would not be useful because the absence of an isolator between the two elements would...

We investigate the operation of optical isolators based on magneto-optics waveguide arrays beyond the coupled mode analysis. Semi-vectorial beam propagation simulations demonstrate that evanescent tail coupling and the effects of radiation are responsible for degrading the device's performance. Our analysis suggests that these effects can be mitigated when the array size is scaled up. In additi...

A guided wave optical isolator using a four layered leaky yttrium iron garnet (YIG) waveguide with a YIG guiding layer is proposed and analyzed through a transfer matrix formulation. The dependence of isolation characteristics on different waveguide parameters are discussed. It is shown that for four layered structures an isolation ratio of about 24 dB can be achieved with YIG films having larg...

Silicon waveguide optical non-reciprocal devices based on the magneto-optical effect are reviewed. The non-reciprocal phase shift caused by the first-order magneto-optical effect is effective in realizing optical non-reciprocal devices in silicon waveguide platforms. In a silicon-on-insulator waveguide, the low refractive index of the buried oxide layer enhances the magneto-optical phase shift,...

We report on our progress towards the integration of nonreciprocal optical elements in, for example, an integrated optical waveguide isolator on conventional semiconductor photonic platforms. Our approach uses an evanescent interaction with a magneto-optic iron garnet upper cladding. Specifically, ceriumand bismuthsubstituted yttrium and terbium iron garnets were investigated. Device fabricatio...

Resonant-layer effect RLE optical isolators can be integrated with a wide variety of optical waveguide devices and systems and theoretically provide a high degree of isolation with low insertion loss. The effect of mode coupling within the isolator and the losses due to coupling between the isolator and the input and output waveguides on the performance of RLE isolators is calculated. The resul...

In two-dimensional 2D photonic crystals PC’s , we demonstrate compact optical waveguide isolators in which light can propagate only one way. Waveguides are composed of magneto-optical materials with magnetic domain walls. Magneto-optical effects and magnetic domain walls break time-reversal and spaceinversion symmetries, respectively, leading to nonreciprocal waveguides with different group vel...