Planar Array Waveguide Auto-Alignment Based on Adaptive Evolution Optimization Method

The new active alignment technique was developed for planar lightwave circuit platform. The technique was successfully applied to the small spot-size laser diode align to 9 mum-diameter core size of the planar waveguide. This new auto-alignment procedure is designed which be based on an evolutionary optimization method. While the self-adaptive adjustment is created, it give the efficient alignment which can be obtained with the advantages of active alignment (low excess loss, good loss uniformity and high yield) and the time consuming is extremely reduced. The rough mesh-scanning (x-y axis) was initialized to the adaptive evolutionary search, and then the virtual cubic was created in searching space. The vertices and centre of cubic were searched. Then the virtual cubic will be moved until the center of virtual cubic has minimum excess loss. In case of the consecutive center of cubic is the same point, the size of cubic will be scaled in each dimension independently. The scaling factor will be self-selected and based on the prior information of alignment process to reach the global optimum point. This yields is fast and high repeatability alignment that suit for a large-volume manufacturing