This thesis focuses on the comprehensive study of integrated photonic couplers pertaining to the category of distributed Bragg deflectors (DBDs) and their implementation in the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. This device converts a channel waveguide mode into a slab confined beam by using a grating formed in the waveguide core. The DBD was first proposed by Stoll in 1978. Stoll foresaw a multitude of applications of DBDs including beam expansion, polarization filtering, beam splitting and modulation. However, DBDs have typically suffered from high insertion losses that hindered their use in practical applications. In this thesis, we develop strategies to dramatically reduce the excess loss and demonstrates various low-loss DBD-based devices in the SOI platform.