Polarization-Independent Reconfigurable WDM-MDM Hybrid Multiplexer on Silicon Photonics Platform

In order to increase the communication capacity of optical links, hybrid multiplexing technology has attracted a lot of interest. In this letter, we have proposed and experimentally demonstrated a polarization-independent silicon hybrid multiplexer with two-mode channels and four-wavelength channels based on an active polarization control scheme. It consists of eight on-chip polarization controllers, one 8 x 8 arrayed waveguide grating multiplexer, and one mode switch. Experimental results show that the polarization-dependent loss is about 0.6 dB. And the crosstalk is less than -18 dB for an arbitrarily polarized light. At the same time, this device also features a signal exchange function between the TE0 and TE1 modes for the aggregated throughput of wavelength channels.