Design and tolerance analysis of optical interleaver based on retardant crystals

Abstract A set of recursion equations was developed for the design of an optical interleaver based on retardant crystals and a third-order optical interleaver with maximally flat passband was designed accordingly. The fabrication tolerance for the retardant crystals was simulated based on crosstalk consideration. Given crosstalk requirement of −25 dB, the tolerance for the crystal thickness and axis orientation was obtained as 0.91 μm and 0.51°, respectively.