Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) phased-array wavelength multi/demultiplexer with extremely low-polarization sensitivity

Abstract

We demonstrate the first phased-array wavelength multiplexer fabricated in the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide technology. The four-channel wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) has a channel spacing of 1.9 nm centered at 1550-nm wavelength and a 3-dB channel bandwidth of 0.72 nm. The crosstalk to neighboring channels is less than -22 dB and the on-chip insertion loss is below 6 dB for all channels. The TE-TM shift is less than 0.04 nm which is the smallest attained without compensation techniques in any integrated optic technology.