Large angular dispersion by a virtually imaged phased array and its application to a wavelength demultiplexer

TLDR

The angular dispersion of a VIPA is 10–20 times larger than that of common diffraction gratings with blaze angles of ~30°. A new scheme that shows large angular dispersion is proposed and demonstrated. The key idea to this method is a virtually imaged phased array (VIPA). With the VIPA, wavelength demultiplexing for 10 channels with 0.8‑nm spacing is achieved and low polarization‑state dependence (~0.1 dB) is confirmed.

Abstract

A new scheme that shows large angular dispersion is proposed and demonstrated. The key idea to this method is a virtually imaged phased array (VIPA). The angular dispersion of a VIPA is 10-20 times larger than those of common diffraction gratings, which have blaze angles of ~30 deg. With the VIPA, wavelength demultiplexing for 10 channels with 0.8-nm spacing is achieved. Low polarization-state dependence (~0.1 dB) is also confirmed.