Compact, silicon-on-insulator, series-cascaded, contradirectional-coupling-based filters with >50 dB adjacent channel isolation

Abstract

In this work, we present optical add/drop multiplexer (OADM) filters for coarse wavelength-division-multiplexing (CWDM) systems with high sidelobe suppressions that result in high adjacent channel isolations (A_i). The filters are realized by using a compact, series-cascaded configuration of apodized, contradirectional-coupling-based filters. We experimentally demonstrate a device with a measured A_i of 53 dB (these devices hold the promise of achieving even higher A_is). While having large A_is, our devices have the wide bandwidths and low insertion losses required for CWDM applications. In addition, our demonstrated OADM has a nearly constant group delay, which results in low dispersion in the passband.