Lateral leakage of TM-like mode in thin-ridge silicon-on-insulator bent waveguides and ring resonators

We present the first prediction of lateral leakage behavior of the TM-like mode in thin-ridge SOI curved waveguides and ring resonators. A simple phenomenological model is first presented which predicts that the lateral leakage in these structures is significantly impacted by both the ring radius and waveguide width. This prediction is verified using full vectorial mode matching and finite element methods. We show that specific combinations of waveguide width and ring radius can lead to very low-loss propagation in the TM-like mode. This finding is critical for the design of high-Q resonators on such waveguide platforms and will have major impact on the field of silicon lasers and sensing applications.