Out-of-Plane Optical Coupling to Photonic Integrated Circuits Using Turning-Mirror Lens Arrays

We demonstrate an out-of-plane optical coupling between a photonic integrated circuit (PIC) and a fiber array (FA). The presented scheme utilizes a molded glass microlens with an integrated turning mirror. We show that by expanding the beam, the alignment tolerances between the fiber and PIC assemblies are expanded by an order of magnitude. The reported coupling losses of 2.1 dB per coupler are only limited by the optical design of the off-the-shelf micro-optics.