Stephen Day

Silica on silicon components for passive optical networks

The implementation of optical fiber networks will require a range of low cost and high functionality passive optical components. Silica on silicon is an important integrated optics technology that is ideally suited for developing such components. This paper describes the components that BNR Europe Limited is currently developing, together with examples of systems architecture. Passive Optical Networks currently being deployed will require power splitter components. Progress on both Y junction based 1 X N splitters and radiative star based 2 X N splitters will be given. Results on insertion loss, wavelength sensitivity and environmental stability of fiber pigtailed devices will be presented. More advanced optical systems will require the introduction of wavelength multiplexing to increase system capacity. The simplest case of wavelength multiplexing will involve the 1300 nm and 1550 nm wavelength. A more complex example of wavelength multiplexing is the optical router pilot system being installed at the Norwegian Broadcasting Company, in Oslo in 1995, as part of the RACE 2001 project. This system includes a fiber pigtailed 8 channel WDM with 4 nm channel spacing, which BNR Europe Limited has recently developed. Results on insertion loss, crosstalk and polarization sensitivity, together with the effect of temperature cycling over the range -55 C to +125 C will be reported at the conference.