  With the advances in on-chip photonic integrated circuits, compact and wide
bandwidth mode converters are required for mode division multiplexing -
demultiplexing and various other applications. We propose the design and theory
for a highly compact, easy to fabricate mode converter that converts TE0 to TE1
and vice versa. The proposed design uses an arc bend waveguide structure based
on Silicon on Insulator (SOI) platform and offers high mode conversion
efficiency, low insertion loss, and large bandwidth of operation. We use
coupled-mode theory to analyse the mode conversion within the structure, and
FDTD simulations have been performed to verify the results. The mode conversion
efficiency of 98.65% for TE0 to TE1 and 99.1% for TE1 to TE0 mode conversion
with a device footprint of 10.5 um * 2 um is reported in this work.
