Abstract

A novel switch configuration for an optical add/drop multiplexer is proposed. By utilizing a certain Mach-Zehnder interferometer both as a component of a double-gate switch and as a level equalizer, we reduced the number of Mach-Zehnder interferometers from five in a conventional switch configuration to three. The add/drop switch simultaneously provides high-isolation switching and polarization-independent automatic level control. The use of planar lightwave circuit (PLC) technology enables this switch to be fabricated with three thermooptic switches (TOSW's) and a monitor tap. High isolation of more than 44 dB and automatic level control accuracy of better than 0.3 dB are achieved. Bit error rate (BER) measurements confirmed switch's usability in the optical add/drop multiplexer.

[IEEE ]

Optical gain and penalty characteristics of a fiber-Bragg-grating based active optical-add-drop multiplexer

Yoon-Suk Hurh, Kyung-Hee Seo, and Jae-Seung Lee
Opt. Express 17(24) 21666-21671 (2009)

Low crosstalk Bragg grating/Mach-Zehnder interferometer optical add-drop multiplexer in silicon photonics

Junjia Wang and Lawrence R. Chen
Opt. Express 23(20) 26450-26459 (2015)

An Opto-VLSI-based reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer employing an off-axis 4-f imaging system

Mingya Shen, Feng Xiao, Selam Ahderom, and Kamal Alameh
Opt. Express 17(16) 14015-14022 (2009)

Bidirectional optical add-drop multiplexer based on Bragg gratings and circulators

An Vu Tran, Chang-Joon Chae, and Rodney S. Tucker
Appl. Opt. 42(18) 3495-3499 (2003)

Hitless and gridless reconfigurable optical add drop (de)multiplexer based on looped waveguide sidewall Bragg gratings on silicon

Xiaofei Wang, Hui Yu, Huiye Qiu, Qiang Zhang, Zhilei Fu, Penghui Xia, Bei Chen, Xiaoqing Guo, Yuehai Wang, Xiaoqing Jiang, and Jianyi Yang
Opt. Express 28(10) 14461-14475 (2020)