Compact, small-fiber alignment system for low-loss fiber to chip coupling

For the development of photonic (quantum) computing, ultra-low loss fiber coupling is one of the crucial aspects for scalability of the systems and efficiency. For high efficiencies in fiber coupling, mode field matching between fiber and waveguide is highly important, but also high precision alignment and bonding of fibers. Currently the state-of-the-art fiber coupling technology for high fiber counts is using fiber array. While this technique allows easier packaging, the efficiency suffers due to positioning inaccuracies. Therefore, single fiber coupling is the solution for the highest accuracy fiber placement and highest fiber coupling efficiency. As the packaging process of single fibers is time consuming and hence expensive, we present a novel parallel fiber alignment system for packaging