Cross-cascaded AWG-based wavelength selective switching integrated module using polymer optical waveguide circuits

Abstract

100-GHz cross-cascaded arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs)-based wavelength selective optical switching optical cross-connects (OXCs) modules with Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) thermo-optic (TO) variable optical attenuator (VOA) arrays and optical true-time-delay (TTD) line arrays is successfully designed and fabricated using polymer photonic lightwave circuit. Highly fluorinated photopolymer and grafting modified organic-inorganic hybrid material were synthesized as the waveguide core and cladding, respectively. The one-chip transmission loss is ~6 dB and the crosstalk is less than ~30 dB for the transverse-magnetic (TM) mode. The actual maximum modulation depths of different thermo-optic switches are similar, ~15.5 dB with 1.9 V bias. The maximum power consumption of a single switch is less than 10 mW. The delay time basic increments are measured from 140 to 20 ps. Proposed novel module is flexible and scalable for the dense wavelength division multiplexing network.

Keywords

polymer waveguides / photosensitive materials / integrated optics devices / photonics integrated circuits

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledged financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61261130586,61275033 and 61205032), Science and Technology Development Plan of Jilin Province (Nos. 20130522151JH and 20140519006JH).

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