Monolithic multi-functional integration of ROADM modules based on polymer photonic lightwave circuit

A transparent reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) module composed of AWG-based wavelength-channel-selectors monolithically integrated with Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) thermooptic (TO) waveguide switch arrays and arrayed waveguide true-time-delay (TTD) lines is designed and fabricated using polymer photonic lightwave circuit technology. Negative-type fluorinated photoresist and grafting modified organic-inorganic hybrid materials were synthesized as the waveguide core and cladding, respectively. The one-chip transmission loss is similar to 6 dB and the crosstalk is less than similar to 30 dB for the transverse-magnetic (TM) mode. The actual maximum modulation depths of different thermooptic switches are similar, similar to 15.5 dB with 1.9 V bias. The maximum power consumption of a single switch is less than 10 mW. The delay time basic increments are measured from 140 ps to 20 ps. Proposed novel ROADM is flexible and scalable for the dense wavelength division multiplexing network. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America