Novel polarization-insensitive arrayed-waveguide grating multiplexer design

To realize practical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) system, a high-performance AWG with an all-optical polarization state controller (AOPSC) is introduced. This device is polarization-independence based on asymmetric planar waveguide in the silicon-oxynitride material system with a high-refractive-index difference Deltan = 0.7% and large a/b (here, a is the width and b is the thickness of the core layer waveguide). Only TE0 mode can exist in the device, the TM0 mode is cutoff. Finally, an eight-channel AWG using 100GHz channel spacing (the center wavelength is 1552.52nm) is designed. In order to get more realistic results, the BPM method was used to simulate the light propagation in the AWG. The simulation was calculated for both TE and TM. Using BPM method, and we found only TE0 can propagate through the device. No polarization dependence was measured in the wavelength response.