A Passive-Polarization Rotator for Flexible Optical Displays

We propose to prove the feasibility of building a waveguide polarization rotator to efficiently couple light from TE-polarized laser diode arrays to TM-polarized waveguide arrays. Our polarization rotator will be passive, can be integrated on the same substrate with electrooptic devices and is compact. Our demonstration will remove the key technical risk associated with efficiently coupling laser diode arrays to waveguide arrays while simultaneously obtaining the correct polarization for electrooptic devices. Having this capability will enable the design of a new class of flexible, energy-efficient optical displays.