Patent ID: 7577325

Claim:
A method of fabricating a passive polarization sorter, comprising the steps of: providing a first waveguide having an input and an output, the first waveguide supporting at least one guided TE polarized mode of mode ranking mode-i-TE and at least one guided TM polarized mode of mode ranking mode-j-TM; and providing a second waveguide having an input and an output, the second waveguide being positioned adjacent to the first waveguide, and the first and second waveguides shaped to form an adiabatic region in which light having one of the TE and TM polarized modes remains within the first waveguide, and light having the other one of the TE and TM polarized modes evanescently couples into the second waveguide, wherein the input of the first waveguide is spaced from the input of the second waveguide and the output of the first waveguide is spaced from the output of the second waveguide.