Advances in polymer-based dynamic photonic components, modules, and subsystems

We describe recent advances in optical communication components, modules, and subsystems based on planar polymer technologies. The dynamic organic photonic integrated circuits exhibit ultra low power consumption through thermo-optic actuation for switching, routing, and tuning. The components (switches, optical cross-connects (OXC), variable optical attenuators (VOA), tunable couplers, etc.) have state-of-the-art performance, meet reliability requirements in the telecommunication industry including Telcordia GR-1209 and GR-1221 qualification, and are broadly deployed in the field. The modules and subsystems include variable multiplexers (VMUX) and reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADM), and they meet the requirements of Telcordia GR-1312 and GR-63 protocols.

[1]  Sethumadhavan Chandrasekhar,et al.  Compact integrated tunable dispersion compensators , 2002, The 15th Annual Meeting of the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society.

[2]  D.J. Dougherty.  Advances in planar lightwave circuits , 2005, OFC/NFOEC Technical Digest. Optical Fiber Communication Conference, 2005..

[3]  Fang Wang,et al.  Intelligent Optical Cross-Connect Subsystem on a Chip , 2005 .

[4]  T. Izuhara,et al.  40-channel ultra-low-power compact PLC-based ROADM subsystem , 2006, 2006 Optical Fiber Communication Conference and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference.

[5]  Louay A. Eldada.  Nanoengineered polymers for photonic integrated circuits , 2005, SPIE Optics + Photonics.