Array Waveguide Gratings (AWG)

Array Waveguide Gratings
(AWGs)
T. Mounika
mounikatedlapu@gmail.com
Array Waveguide Gratings
Characteristics of optical fibers
 Optical fiber is a popular carrier of long distance communications due

to its potential speed, flexibility and reliability.
 Attenuation and dispersion problems in fiber, which limit the practical
speed and distance of communications, were partially resolved.
 However, the dispersion qualities of an optical fiber still force a
compromise between transmission distance and bandwidth, making it
necessary to refresh high-speed signals at intervals using optoelectronic
repeaters.
 A more elegant solution is found using AWGs, which effectively
increases the useable bandwidth in a system without electronic
repeaters
AWGPrinciple
 Coupling from the slab waveguide to the waveguide array is the most
significant source of loss in an AWG, because of the mismatch between
the field distributions of the slab waveguide and the arrayed
waveguides.
 The light couples from the input combiner into the array of waveguides
that start along an arc centered at the input waveguide-combiner
junction, with a radius equal to the focal length of the combiner. This
ensures that the light injected from the central input waveguide arrives
at the beginning of each of the arrayed waveguides with the same
phase.
AWG Related Problems
 Among various targets of current AWG research, the following topics

appear particularly relevant: miniaturization, increasing channel
numbers, decreasing channel spacing, reduction of insertion loss,
crosstalk and chromatic dispersion, flattening and widening the
passband, elimination of polarization and temperature sensitivity, and
improving spectral tuning capabilities including advanced add–drop,
cross-connect, and filtering functions, and integration with
photodetectors, lasers, modulators, variable optical attenuators, optical
amplifiers, switches, and other photonic elements.
 One of the difficulties in large-scale AWGs is
crosstalk deterioration caused by phase errors
arising from variations in the arrayed waveguide
width, thickness, material composition, and stress.
Because the influence of such errors increases with
the size of the waveguide array, the effect can be
severe for densely spaced AWGs.
• The crosstalk can be reduced by adjusting the phase delays in the
individual arrayed waveguides, but this is rather tedious task. The
phase can be measured for each waveguide of the array by low
coherence interferometry.
• The phase correction can be achieved by uv-induced refractive index

changes in the glass. All the waveguides are exposed at the same time
by using a metal mask with different opening lengths over each
waveguide that are proportional to the phase errors to be
compensated.
• Effective index birefringence in the arrayed
waveguides produces a polarization-
dependent shift of in the demultiplexer
central wavelength.
• The AWG central wavelength changes with

temperature. Active temperature stabilization
by a heater or Peltier cooler is often used, but
it requires continuous power consumption of
several watts and temperature control
electronics. This can be avoided with an
athermal design, with substantially reduced
temperature sensitivity.
 A typical AWG has a symmetric intensity distribution across
the waveguide array, and as such its chromatic dispersion D is
negligible. However in a practical AWG this symmetry is
disturbed by phase and amplitude errors that are randomly
distributed in the arrayed waveguides. This increases
chromatic dispersion. Because the errors increase with
decreasing channel separation, the chromatic dispersion
increases similarly.
 Recently, AWG devices made of polymeric
materials have been gaining a great deal of
attention because of their excellent particular
features such as easier optical integrating, lower
transmission loss and easier control of the
refractive index, compared to other AWG devices.
Many search groups have focused on the
development of polymeric AWG multiplexers, and
have fabricated such optical devices using
polymeric materials.
Thank you

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Array Waveguide Gratings

 Optical fiber is a popular carrier of long distance communications due

 Among various targets of current AWG research, the following topics

• The phase correction can be achieved by uv-induced refractive index

• The AWG central wavelength changes with

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