Abstract

There are two principal benefits to using planar lightwave circuit (PLC) based arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) in dense WDM systems: (1) cost effectively enabling high channel counts in devices (>40), and (2) allowing mass production in a mode similar to that in the IC industry. However, stress introduced birefringence in wave guides causes polarization dependent wavelength shifts (PDW), which remains a key issue for yield improvement of AWGs. Inserting a polyimide half-waveplate in the center of the grating mini-mizes PDW, ¹ but this method requires additional process steps and generates excess insertion loss.

© 2002 Optical Society of America