On-chip reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer for hybrid wavelength/mode-division-multiplexing systems

Shipeng Wang, Xianglian Feng, Shiming Gao, Yaocheng Shi, Tingge Dai, Hui Yu, Hon-Ki Tsang, and Daoxin Dai

Index: 10.1364/OL.42.002802

Full Text: HTML

Abstract

A silicon-based on-chip reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) is presented for hybrid wavelength-division-multiplexing–mode-division-multiplexing systems. The present ROADM consists of a four-channel mode demultiplexer, four wavelength-selective thermo-optic switches based on microring resonators, and a four-channel mode multiplexer. With the present ROADM, one can add/drop one of wavelength channels of any mode to/from the multimode bus waveguide successfully with an excess loss of 2–5 dB and an extinction ratio of ∼20 dB over a wavelength range of 1525–1555 nm.