A novel bidirectional wavelength add-drop multiplexer based on fiber Bragg gratings and 4-port optical circulators

One of the key components for implementing wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) single fiber bidirectional ring networks (SFBRNs) is bidirectional wavelength add-drop multiplexer (B-WADM). In this paper, we propose a novel architecture of B-WADM using fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) and 4-port optical circulators (OCs). Advantages of the proposed architecture include simple structure, low crosstalk, low insertion-loss and low power-penalty. The feasibility of this B-WADM is experimentally proved by bidirectional add-drop demonstration using eight OC-192 channels.