Title :
Colorless tunable optical dispersion compensator based on a silica arrayed-waveguide grating and a polymer thermooptic lens
Author :
Doerr, C.R. ; Blum, R. ; Buhl, L.L. ; Cappuzzo, M.A. ; Chen, E.Y. ; Wong-Foy, A. ; Gomez, L.T. ; Bulthuis, H.
Author_Institution :
Bell Labs., Lucent Technol., Holmdel, NJ
fDate :
6/1/2006 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
We present a colorless tunable optical dispersion compensator (TODC) comprised of a silica arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) directly coupled to a polymer thermooptic lens. Using silica for the AWG allows it to be low loss and manufactured by a standard process, and using polymer for the thermooptic lens allows it to have a large tuning range and low electrical power consumption. This hybrid TODC is fully solid-state and scales to a large figure-of-merit (dispersion range times bandwidth squared). We demonstrate a version with 100-GHz free-spectral range and 1300-ps/nm tuning range with a 3-dB bandwidth >39 GHz and a lens power consumption <74 mW
Keywords :
arrayed waveguide gratings; compensation; lenses; optical communication equipment; optical fibre dispersion; optical polymers; optical tuning; silicon compounds; thermo-optical devices; 100 GHz; AWG; SiO2; colorless tunable optical dispersion compensator; figure-of-merit; polymer thermooptic lens; silica arrayed-waveguide grating; Arrayed waveguide gratings; Bandwidth; Energy consumption; Lenses; Optical arrays; Optical coupling; Optical losses; Optical polymers; Optical tuning; Silicon compounds; Gratings; optical equalizers; optical fiber dispersion; optical polymers; optical waveguides; thermooptic effects;
Journal_Title :
Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LPT.2006.874676
