Abstract
Phased-array waveguide grating (PAWG) device has become an important building block for optical wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) communication systems. This is due, in part, to its low insertion loss, ease of fabrication, and integratability. Besides serving the basic function as a WDM multiplexer1 or demultiplexer, it has also been applied to add/drop multiplexers,2 frequency-selective switches and filters.3-4 In this paper we present a novel 2 × N PAWG design, which utilizes two sets of vernier input ports to compensate center wavelength shifting due to processing.5 By having two corresponding sets of output waveguides, each PAWG can function as two identical 1 × N-channel wavelength multi/demultiplexers. All input and output channels of the two 1 × N devices are interleaved to yield uniformity and efficient interconnect to cross-bar switches. An 8-channel wavelength-selective 2×2 nonblocking optical switch is designed using two 2×8 PAWGs, connected by 12 thermal-optic (TO) cross-bar switches. This 2×2 WDM optical switch can route each input wavelength to either output ports and is suitable for any transparent optical WDM network systems.
© 1996 Optical Society of America
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