US Patent 10955614 Optical fiber coupler structure having manufacturing variation-sensitive transmission blocking region

Optical coupler structures have an insulator layer on a substrate, a waveguide structure in the insulator layer, and a cladding layer on the waveguide structure and the insulator layer. Optical grating couplers are on the cladding layer and the waveguide structure is connected between the optical grating couplers. The waveguide structure is discontinuous between the optical grating couplers. The insulator layer includes an array at a transmission blocking region between discontinuous sections of the waveguide structure. This array can be a void opening array of openings or can be a blocking element array of disconnected elements in the insulator layer.