CMOS compatible highly efficient grating couplers with a stair-step blaze profile

A novel grating coupler with a stair-step blaze profile is proposed. The coupler is a CMOS process compatible device and can be used for light coupling in optical communication. The blaze profile can be optimized to obtain a high efficiency of 66.7% for the out-of-plane coupling at the centre wavelength of 1595 nm with a 1 dB bandwidth of 41 nm. Five key parameters of the stair-step blaze grating and their effects on the coupling are discussed for the application in L band telecommunication.