Abstract

Optical circulators are necessary passive devices applied in optical communication systems. In the design of optical circulators, the implementation of the function of spatial walk-off polarizers is a key technique that significantly influences the performance and cost of a device. This paper proposes a design of a multiport optical circulator by using polarizing beam splitter cubes as spatial walk-off polarizers. To show the feasibility of the design, a prototype of a six-port optical circulator was fabricated. The insertion losses are $0.94–1.49\mathrm{dB}$, the isolations are $25–51\mathrm{dB}$, and return losses are $27.72\mathrm{dB}$.

© 2010 Optical Society of America

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