Arrayed waveguide grating multiplexer with high thermal stability on silicon

In this paper, certain important parameters are optimized for a polymer/Si arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer by using grating theory. A 32-channel multiplexer is designed and fabricated using newly synthesized fluorinated poly (ether ether ketone) with a high thermal stability. The measured wavelength channel spacing is 0.796 nm, and center wavelength and 3-dB bandwidth are 1548 nm and 0.3 nm, respectively.     

System degradation due to phase error induced crosstalk in WDM optical networks employing arrayed waveguide grating multi/demultiplexer

The phase error induced crosstalk within arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) have been investigated theoretically as well as simulation. For WDM system, a crosstalk level of −21.9 dB causes a power penalty of 1 dB for 64 channels and less than 0.5 dB for 16 channels and 32 channels, respectively. For crosstalk level of −30 dB and below, the power penalty is negligible. Crosstalk due to phase error also causes higher power penalty at higher bit rate. Bit rate of 10, 20 and 40 Gbits/s causes power penalty of 1 dB with crosstalk level of −41.5, −46.25 and −49 dB, respectively.     

Analytical modeling of loss characteristics of a polymer arrayed waveguide grating multiplexer

Theoretical analysis is performed for the loss characteristics of a polymer arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer around the central wavelength of 1.55 μm with the wavelength spacing of 1.6 nm. The total loss of the device includes the diffraction loss in the input and output (I/O) slab waveguides, bent loss caused by the AWG and I/O channels, leakage loss resulted from the high refractive index substrate, and propagation loss due to the absorption and scattering of the materials of the device. The effects of some structural parameters on the loss characteristics are investigated and discussed. The computed results show that when we select the core thickness as 4 μm, core width as 6 μm, pitch of adjacent waveguides as 15.5 μm, diffraction order as 50, the number of the arrayed waveguides as 91, that of the I/O channels as 17, confined layer thickness between the core and the substrate as 10 μm, distance between the focal point and the origin as 5500 μm, and central angle between the central waveguide and the x-axis (i.e. the vertical of the symmetrical line of the device) as 60°, the total loss of the device can be dropped to the range 3.79–7.93 dB.     

650 nm聚合物阵列波导光栅波分复用器设计

选择在可见光波段具有较低吸收损耗的聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯-甲基丙烯酸环氧丙酯 共聚物作为波导包层材料,使用双酚A型环氧树脂作为折射率调节剂,根据材料的折射率设计了单模波导截面尺寸;然后,采用束传播法优化设计出16信道阵列波导光栅(AWG)器件的版图结构。利用Optiwave软件模拟了AWG器件的光传输特性,结果显示,器件的信道间隔为0.845 01 nm,插入损耗小于14 dB,串扰小于-25 dB。     

Athermal silicon arrayed waveguide grating with polymer-filled slot structure

In this paper, an athermal silicon arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) with the assistance of a polymer-filled slot structure is proposed. Arrayed slot waveguides were used to replace arrayed silicon photonic wires (SPWs). By carefully controlling the temperature dependence of the effective index of the polymer-filled slot waveguides, the athermal silicon AWG is realized. Analysis shows that the center wavelength shift of the AWG can be down to 0.14 pm/°C.     

Design and fabrication of arrayed waveguide grating using fluoropolymer PFS-co-GMA

A 33×33 polymer arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer is optimized and fabricated. This device is made of polymeric materials named 2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorostyrene-co-glycidylmethacrylate (PFS-co-GMA). The central wavelength and wavelength spacing are designed to be 1550.918 and 0.8 nm, respectively. The calculated results are: the 3-dB bandwidth is about 0.24 nm, insertion loss is about 8.4 dB and crosstalk is −33.7 dB. The corresponding measured results are: the center wavelength is about 1550.85 nm, wavelength channel spacing is about 0.81 nm, 3-dB bandwidth is about 0.35 nm, crosstalk is about −20 dB, insertion loss is between 10.4 dB for the central port and 11.9 dB for the edge ports.     

A 32-channel 100 GHz wavelength division multiplexer by interleaving two silicon arrayed waveguide gratings

A 32-channel wavelength division multiplexer with 100 GHz spacing is designed and fabricated by interleaving two silicon arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs). It has a parallel structure consisting of two silicon 16-channel AWGs with 200 GHz spacing and a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with 200 GHz free spectral range. The 16 channels of one silicon AWG are interleaved with those of the other AWG in spectrum, but with an identical spacing of 200 GHz. For the composed wavelength division multiplexer, the experiment results reveal 32 wavelength channels in C-band, a wavelength spacing of 100 GHz, and a channel crosstalk lower than -15 dB.     

Polymeric 32-channel arrayed waveguide grating multiplexer using fluorinated poly (ether ether ketone)

In wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems, an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer is a key component. A polymeric AWG multiplexer has recently attracted much attention due to its low cost processing and a potential of integration with other devices. Fluorinated poly (ether ether ketone)(FPEEK) is excellent material for fabrication of optical waveguides due to its low absorption loss at 1.55-μm wavelength and high thermal stability. A 32-channel AWG multiplexer has been designed based on the grating diffraction theory and fabricated using newly synthesized FPEEK. During the fabrication process of the Polymer/Si AWG device, spin coating, vaporizing, photolithographic patterning and reactive ion etching (RIE) are used. The AWG multiplexer measurement system is based on a tunable semiconductor laser, infrared camera and a Peltier-type heater. The device exhibits a wavelength channel spacing of 0.8nm and a center wavelength of 1548 nm in the room temperature.     

Analysis for fabrication errors of arrayed waveguide grating multiplexers

Based on the transmission theory, parameter optimization is performed, and effects of fabrication errors on transmission characteristics are analyzed for a 33×33 polymer arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer around the central wavelength of 1550.918 nm with the wavelength spacing of 0.8 nm. Simulated results show that fabrication errors result in the shift of the transmission spectrum, and lead to the increase of the crosstalk compared with the device theoretically designed. Furthermore, accumulation and compensation of fabrication errors are investigated. In order to realize the normal demultiplexing of the fabricated AWG device, the allowed fabrication errors are discussed.     

A concise design of 16 × 16 polymer AWG with low insertion loss and crosstalk

In this paper, a 16-channel arrayed waveguide grating multiplexer (AWG) has been designed using polymer materials with 1.5% refractive index difference. Certain important parameters are optimized using the coupling mode theory and Beam Propagation Method. The factors that affect the insertion loss and the crosstalk are analyzed in this paper. In our design we introduced the parabolic taper structure and evaluated the suitable number of the arrayed waveguide, obtaining a total insertion loss of 2.19 dB. For obtaining a low crosstalk we evaluate the pitches of adjacent input/output waveguides ΔX and arrayed waveguides d as different values. We chose the value of ΔX about 2.5 times of d by enlarging the pitches of adjacent input/output waveguides. The crosstalk of the designed AWG is lower than −40 dB.     

Athermal metal-free planar waveguide concave grating demultiplexer

An athermal metal-free planar waveguide concave grating demultiplexer is proposed. We designed the dielectric mirror at the grating facet instead of coating with the metal on the back wall of the grating facet. The transfer-matrix method is introduced to design the dielectric mirror and the reflectance spectral responses of the 2D waveguide structure are simulated using the FDTD software (RSoft, Inc.). To reduce the temperature sensitivity of the device, the three-focal-point method is introduced. We use the design example to show the high-reflectance bandwidth of the dielectric mirror. The fabrication errors are also taken into consideration. By using the numerical model of the scalar diffraction theory, the flat-top spectral responses of the channels are simulated.     

Compact SOI arrayed waveguide grating demultiplexer with broad spectral response

A compact eight-channel flat spectral response arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) materials has been fabricated on the planar lightwave circuit (PLC). The 1-dB bandwidth of 48 GHz and 3-dB bandwidth of 69 GHz are obtained for the 100 GHz channel spacing. Not only non-adjacent crosstalk but also adjacent crosstalk are less than −25 dB. The on-chip propagation loss range is from 3.5 to 3.9 dB, and the total device size is 1.5 × 1.0 cm².     

A novel asymmetric arrayed waveguide grating with different lengths of input/output slabs

A novel arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) with asymmetric configuration is proposed. In this configuration, the length of the output slab region, the width and the spacing of the output waveguides are unequal to the corresponding parts of the input ones. Compared to a conventional symmetric AWG, the asymmetric AWG proposed in this paper has a smaller size without degrading its performance The analytic method used in a conventional symmetric AWG is extended to the asymmetric AWG. A design example of an asymmetric AWG with low insertion loss, low channel crosstalk and wide bandwidth is presented.     

Performance analysis of metro WDM network based on an optical cross connects and arrayed waveguide grating demultiplexer

In this paper, we have demonstrated the quality-of-service offered by the metropolitan area network which is based on optical cross connect (OXC) and arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) demultiplexer operating at 10 Gb/s with 0.1 nm channel spacing for NRZ signal transmission. The data is successfully transmitted to a distance of 40 km with a reasonably good BER of 2.388 × 10⁻³⁵. The OXC and AWG demultiplexers in the proposed architecture allow incremental expansion in terms of the number of wavelength channels to be transmitted. Dispersion and crosstalk are the main signal-degrading factors arising from the operation of the OXC and the effectiveness of each factor is individually investigated.     

Modeling of arrayed waveguide grating for wavelength interrogation application

We have proposed and discussed a design of arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) for the application of wavelength interrogation. The spectral responses of a silica-based 16 channel AWG with channel spacing 1.6 nm have been simulated when different receiver waveguide spacing are used. It was found that the 3-dB bandwidth is reduced about 50% as the receiver waveguide spacing increasing from 20 μm to 30 μm. The effect of bandwidth of the spectral response on wavelength resolution of AWG based interrogator has been estimated and discussed.     

Lyot filter based multiwavelength fiber ring laser actively mode-locked at 10 GHz using an electroabsorption modulator

A multiwavelength fiber ring laser comprising of a Lyot filter and hybrid gain medium is presented. A wavelength channel spacing of 100 GHz is achieved by appropriate tuning of the Lyot filter length. Four wavelength channels are simultaneously mode-locked at 10 GHz using an electroabsorption modulator. We highlight how the intra-cavity modulator can affect the stability of the mode-locked laser spectrum when used in conjunction with a Lyot filter. We show that, due its reduced polarization sensitivity, an electroabsorption modulator significantly improves the stability of the mode-locked laser spectrum when compared to using a Mach-Zehnder modulator.     

1 × N add-drop filter structures using one dense wavelength division multiplexing thin-film filter

This paper proposes 1 × N add-drop filter structures in which only one thin-film filter (TF) is used. Our key idea is based on a combination of an angle-multiplexing concept and the flexibility of the optical fiber to allow a multiwavelength optical beam hit the TF several times, each time at a different angle but same position. Due to the TF angle sensitivity, the desired wavelength optical beam corresponding to the incident angle is therefore spatially isolated from the main optical beam. Our first TF-based 1 × N add-drop filter structure is arranged in a reflective design in which N wavelength optical beams can be dropped out from the main channel. For our transmissive architecture, N − 2 channels are directed to their associated output terminals while the remaining λ_N−1 and λ_N wavelength optical beams are sent out at the same port. Experimental proof of concept for our reflective TF-based 1 × 3 add-drop filter using one off-the-shelf TF, a triple fiber-optic collimator, and an optical circulator separates two wavelength optical beams with their channel spacing of 0.8 nm from the main channel. In this case, measured optical losses of 0.67 dB, 1.66 dB, and 2.59 dB are obtained for the first, the second, and the remaining dropped wavelength optical beams, respectively. Optical crosstalk and polarization dependent loss of <−18 dB and <0.08 dB are also investigated, respectively.     

A novel full duplex 16 Gbps SCM/ASK radio over fiber WDM-PON sharing wavelength for up- and down-link using bidirectional reflective filter

In this paper, a new bidirectional wavelength division multiplexing radio-over-fiber (WDM-RoF) using Subcarrier Multiplexing/Amplitude Shift Keying (SCM/ASK) is proposed which shares the same wavelengths for both up-link and down-link. A bidirectional reflective filter (BRF) is utilized in the upstream link to provide a reliable bidirectional optical channel. WDM is used to further increase the capacity of system. Simulation of the proposed scheme demonstrates 1 Gbps down- and up-link data stream for 16 channels over the length of 25 km with acceptable Q-factor (>6 dB).     

Transmission of 4× 40/10 Gbps in a WDM-PON using NRZ-DQPSK/ASK modulation

In this paper we demonstrate the feasibility to deploy a wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (WDM-PON) of a 30 km standard single-mode fiber (SSMF-28) carrying 160 Gbps data in downstream and 40 Gbps through the uplink. The developed method is based on the comparison between two WDM-PON systems of 4 channels with the same characteristics, using two different formats of modulation in OLTs. The first system uses the NRZ-ASK in the downlink direction, while the second uses the NRZ-DQPSK.     

Investigations on order and width of RZ super Gaussian pulse in different WDM systems at 40 Gb/s using dispersion compensating fibers

In optical wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) systems the dispersion management is a key issue. In optical systems a lot of research is going on to reduce dispersion by selecting proper dispersion compensating techniques and proper modulation format for input data. One way to reduce dispersion is by using dispersion compensating fibers in the WDM systems. This paper analyzes the use of RZ super Gaussian pulse inputs for different WDM systems i.e. for conventional, dense and ultra dense WDM systems employing dispersion compensating fibers. The pulse width and the order of the RZ super Gaussian pulse was varied to evaluate the performance at 40 Gb/s. The experiment showed that to get minimum BER, pulse width of 7.5 ps and 10 ps along with third-order RZ super Gaussian pulse were found suitable and recommended to be used.