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.     

32-channel arrayed waveguide grating multiplexer using low loss fluorinated polymer operating around 1550 nm

A 32 × 32 arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer operating around the 1550 nm wavelength has been designed and fabricated using highly fluorinated polyethers. The propagation loss of the slab waveguide is about 0.3 dB/cm at 1550 nm wavelength. The channel spacing of the AWG multiplexer is 0.8 nm (100 GHz). The insertion loss of the multiplexer is 10.3-15.3 dB and the crosstalk is less than −20 dB.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Efficient design of silicon slot waveguide optical modulator

An optimal design of a slot waveguide is presented for realizing an ultrafast optical modulator based on a 220 nm silicon wafer technology. The recipe is to maximize the confinement and interaction between optical power supported by the waveguide and electric field applied through metallic electrodes. As height of waveguide is fixed at 220 nm, the waveguide and slot width are optimized to maximize the confinement factor of optical power. Moreover, metal electrodes tend to make the waveguide lossy, their optimal placement is calculated to reduce the optical loss and enhance the voltage per unit width in the slot. Performance of an optimally designed slot waveguide with metal electrodes as ultrafast modulator is also discussed.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Novel wavelength-accurate InP-based arrayed waveguide grating

A 13-channel, InP-based arrayed waveguide grating （AWG） is designed and fabricated in which the on-chip loss of the central channel is about -5 dB and the crosstalk is less than -23 dB in the center of the spectrum response. However, the central wavelength and channel spacing are deviated from the design values. To improve their accuracy, an optimized design is adopted to compensate the process error. As a result, the central wavelength 1549.9 nm and channel spacing 1.59 nm are obtained in the experiment, while their design values are 1549.32 nm and 1.6 nm, respectively. The route capability and thermo-optic characteristic of the AWG are also discussed in detail.     

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.     

High-speed compact silicon digital optical switch with slot structure

A high-speed compact silicon digital optical switch (DOS) is proposed in this paper. The direct electro-optic effect is applied by filling electro-optic polymer in the void slot of the branches, which compensates the limitation of silicon itself. The crosstalk of about 35 dB and the insertion loss of 0.7 dB is obtained, the switching speed is less than 1 ps, and the whole device length can be shortened to 616 μm even using the basic mode-evolving principle and a simple Y-type structure. Analysis also shows that the device has good fabrication tolerance and wavelength independence over the C-band.     

Design of flat-field arrayed waveguide grating with three stigmatic points

A new-type flat-field arrayed waveguide grating (AWG), with the focal signals of all wavelengths of operation focusing along a straight line, has been designed. The work bases on the aberration theory of AWG, in which the restraints imposed on the conventional Rowland-type AWG have been released. In the design of flat-field AWG, three stigmatic points restrain three dominant geometry parameters: geometry of star couplers, ports distribution of phased-array, and length increment between adjacent paths. An eight-channel 200-GHz spacing flat-field AWG has been designed and simulated. As stigmatic points introduced, the aberration of this device is much lower than that of the Rowland-type AWG.     

Design and fabrication of multi-channel photodetector array monolithic with arrayed waveguide grating

We have provided optical simulations of the evanescently coupled waveguide photodiodes integrated with a 13-channels AWGs. The photodiode could exhibit high internal efficiency by appropriate choice of layers geometry and refractive index. Aseamless joint structure has been designed and fabricated for integrating the output waveguides of AWGs with the evanescently coupled waveguide photodiode array. The highest simulation quantum efficiency could achieve 92% when the matching layer thickness of the PD is 120 nm and the insertion length is 2 μm. The fabricated PD with 320-nm-thick matching layer and 2-μm-length insertion matching layer present a responsivity of 0.87 A/W.     

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.     

阵列波导光栅梳状带通滤波器的传输效率

在光波导模场分布高斯近似条件下,根据星形光波导耦合器的耦合特性,推导出了基于累加运算和卷积运算近似表达的阵列波导光栅梳状带通滤波器光谱响应效率的函数表达式。给出了阵列波导光栅梳状带通滤波器光谱响应效率曲线的半最大值全宽度和阵列波导光栅梳状带通滤波器的通道中心波长的光谱响应度与器件参数的关系。在输入信号光谱分布高斯近似条件下,给出了阵列波导光栅梳状带通滤波器信号通道传输效率的计算表达式和输入信号光谱宽度对阵列波导光栅梳状带通滤波器信号通道输出特性的影响。给出了物理意义明确的函数表达式,它们可为快速分析阵列波导光栅梳状带通滤波器的特性提供理论基础。     

聚合物/二氧化硅混合型无热化阵列波导光栅参量的优化

研究一种新型无热化聚合物/二氧化硅混合波导组成的硅基二氧化硅阵列波导光栅.阵列波导光栅对温度的依赖性受波导物质的折射率和波导芯的尺寸影响.通过调节这些参量就可以减小温度对阵列波导光栅的影响.优化得到混合型阵列波导光栅在温度20~70℃范围内波谱漂移小于常规型 AWG结构的5%.     

UV-written long-period waveguide grating coupler for broadband add/drop multiplexing

We demonstrate a UV-written polymer long-period waveguide grating (LPWG) coupler, which offers a bandwidth of ∼20 nm, a maximum coupling efficiency of ∼80% and ∼60% for the TE and TM polarizations, respectively, and a wavelength-tuning range over the (S + C + L)-band (∼140 nm) with a temperature control of ∼25 °C. The LPWG coupler has the potential to be developed into a practical broadband add/drop multiplexer for coarse wavelength-division-multiplexing applications.     

Electro-optic polymer assisted optical switch based on silicon slot structure

One kind of electro-optic polymer assisted Mach-Zehnder optical switch based on silicon slot structure is presented in this paper. The interference arms of the switch are slot structures instead of regular single-mode waveguides. By filling electro-optic material in the void slot of the arms, direct electro-optic modulation can be introduced. Theoretical model and detailed analysis are given in this paper. The length-independent product V_πL is about 74 mV cm when slot width is 100 nm, and 37 mV cm when slot width is 50 nm, when the polymer with a electro-optical coefficient of γ₃₃ = 130 pm/V is assisted. An ultralow energy consumption of only 37 fJ/bit is achievable, and the turn-on time of the switch is less than 1.5 ps.