High-order microring resonators with bent couplers for a box-like filter response

High-order microring resonator (MRR) filters with bent directional couplers are proposed and demonstrated to achieve a box-like filter response. When using bent couplers, the coupling ratio can be adjusted easily by choosing the length of the coupling region, and the excess loss is almost zero while the perimeter of the microring length is unchanged. For the present fabricated five-microring filters with bent directional couplers, the excess loss is less than 1.0 dB, the out-of-band extinction ratio is similar to 36 dB, and the response has rising and falling edges as sharp as 48 dB/nm. The thermal tunability of the high-order MRR filter with a Ti-microheater is also demonstrated and the thermally tuning efficiency is about 0.10 nm/mW. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America