Novel Approach for Controllable Polarization Beam Splitter: Design and Simulation

A novel controllable polarization beam splitter is designed by using the modified Y-branch waveguide structure, in which the nematic liquid crystal is introduced. The optical performance of the polarization beam splitter is numerically investigated by the beam propagation method. The results show that not only can high extinction ratio and low optical loss be easily achieved, but also the output ports for TE and TM modes can be dynamically interchangeable in our configuration. Moreover, the proposed polarization beam splitter has little wavelength dependence and large fabrication tolerance. This firstly proposed device provides a unique approach for the manipulation of polarization splitting, which has wide potential application in the photonic integrated circuits.