Kaixin Chen

Design and fabrication of a broadband polymer vertically coupled optical switch

This paper presents a detailed design and fabrication of a composite broadband polymer vertically coupled optical switch with a spectral extinction ratio variation less than 1 dB for the cross state and 2.5 dB for the bar state. This switch consists of two pairs of basic three-dimensional (3-D) polymer switches with peak coupling wavelengths located at the two ends of the C-band, respectively. The resultant extinction ratio is shown to be the sum of the individual ratios of the two basic switches that the optical signal propagates through. The rise time and fall time of switching are 1.0 and 1.5 ms, respectively, and the total electric power applied to the electrode heater is about 140 mW.

Broadband Multiport Dynamic Optical Power Distributor Based on Thermooptic Polymer Waveguide Vertical Couplers

We propose a broadband multiport dynamic optical power distributor, which consists of a series of asymmetric vertical optical waveguide directional couplers with thermooptically tunable splitting ratios. To demonstrate the idea experimentally, we fabricated a five-port optical power distributor with four polymer waveguide vertical couplers. The fabricated device is 9 mm long and allows a practically arbitrary optical power distribution to be achieved with a maximum electric power consumption less than 50 mW in any of the couplers and a response time of ~1 ms. The device operates effectively in the whole C-band without significant variations in performance.

Three-dimensional broadband polymer optical waveguide switch matrix.

A 1 x 4 3D broadband polymer optical waveguide switch matrix is demonstrated. The fabricated device, which contains four vertically coupled thermo-optic switches, has a compact construction (only 9 mm in length) and a power consumption of 45 mW. Compared with the corresponding planar ones, this 3D switch matrix has two distinct features. First, the light signal can be easily switched to any output port by operating only a single switch unit. Second, the switching extinction ratio, cross talk, and insertion loss of this matrix are practically wavelength independent over the whole C band. We also show that this structure can be extended quite simply to an M x M nonblocking switch matrix.

A flat-top pass-band interleaver through two-stage Y-Junction MZI on polymer PLC platform

A two-stage-cascaded Y-Junction MZI interleaver of 100 GHz channel spacing over a 40 nm wavelength window is experimentally demonstrated. The 0.5 dB pass -band at the two output ports were 38 GHz and 50 GHz , respectively.

Planar Lightwave Circuit Technology-based Optical Interleavers

We review our recent works on the realization of planar lightwave circuit (PLC) technology-based optical interleavers. Commercially available polymer materials were used to fabricate the devices and we implemented our designs using two different configurations. The first is based on a folded two-stage-cascaded Y-junction MZI interleavers which offers a flat-top 100 GHz channel spacing over the entire C-band. The second is based on a three-dimensional structure which allows selectable channel spacing and adjustable flat-top using thermooptic effect. This interleaver is made of two waveguides laid in two different but parallel layers.

Three-Dimensional Switch Matrix based on Polymer Optical Waveguides

A three-dimensional 1times4 switching matrix based on polymer optical waveguides is reported. Its features are: compactness, small switching electric power, and wavelength independent. This structure can be readily generalized to a mtimesn matrix.

An Easily Operating Polymer 1×4 Optical Waveguide Switch Matrix Based on Vertical Couplers

A three-dimensional (3D) polymer thermo-optic (TO) 1×4 waveguide switch matrix based on vertical couplers is demonstrated. It consists of four basic 3D switch units and because of its 3D structure, its construction is compact, only 9 mm in length; moreover, the control logic of the entire switch is very simple, the light signal can be easily switched to any output port by operating only a single switch unit. The finished devices exhibit a switching extinction ratio greater than 21 dB for all of four output ports and the crosstalk between two adjacent output ports is lower than -19 dB. The rise time and the fall time of the switch matrix are 0.8 ms and 1.4 ms, respectively. The required electrical power to initiate the switching function for all switching units is about 50 mW.

Wavelength independent vertically-coupled polymer optical waveguide switch

We propose a composite polymer vertically-coupled optical waveguide switch that offers wavelength independent switching characteristics. The variation of the extinction ratio within the C-band is less than 4 dB for bar state and 1 dB for cross state.