Compact and electro-optic tunable interleaver in lithium niobate thin film

Abstract

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a compact and electro-optic (EO) tunable interleaver in X-cut lithium niobate thin film using an asymmetrical Mach-Zehnder interferometer configuration. Our typical fabricated device has an EO interactive length of ∼1.35 mm and a total length of ∼4.0 mm. Over a wide wavelength range from 1528 to 1605 nm, the device exhibits polarization-insensitive center wavelengths and channel spacing of ∼49.7 GHz, but a slightly different extinction ratio of 10-20 and 12-23 dB, and electrical wavelength tuning sensitivity of ∼18 and ∼16 pm/V for the transverse electric- and transverse magnetic-polarized input light, respectively. The proposed interleaver also has the potential to be used as a tunable filter or a wavelength-selective switch.