Imprinting of low dispersion Bragg gratings in planar devices for 40 Gbps DWDM systems

Wavelength selective Bragg grating filters in form of periodic modulation of the refractive index along the waveguide can be laser-imprinted in fibers and planar lightwave circuits (PLC)s utilizing UV photosensitivity of the Ge-doped silica core material. Such gratings have a potential to be extensively used in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems in many optical components including add/drop multiplexers. As a bit rates in DWDM systems continuously increase, these components must have low group delay dispersion as well as steep filter characteristics. In this paper we present fabrication technology and optical characteristics of PLC Bragg gratings and grating assisted Add/Drop multiplexers (ADM)s developed for 40 Gbps DWDM systems. Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI)-based ADM structures were fabricated with silica-on-silicon planar technology using Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition and subsequent Reactive Ion Etching. The MZI consisted of two 3dB couplers and two identical Bragg gratings UV-imprinted in both arms of the interferometer. For imprinting of gratings in (PLC)s a computer controlled interferometer with special configuration was designed and fabricated. The interferometer allows writing gratings with periods corresponding to any wavelength within C-band. Gratings as short as 4 mm can give over 30 dB suppression of the reflected channel. If needed, group delay compensation can be introduced by programmable phase perturbation during grating writing. The fabricated ADMs have been tested and shown 0.4 nm flat top transmission bandwidth measured in the Drop port. Clear eye openings at 40 Gbps have been obtained, when tested with SHF 5005A multiplexer and Agilent 86100B digital sampling oscilloscope.