On-Chip Polarization Controlled Mode Converter With Capability of WDM Operation

An on-chip polarization controlled mode converter compatible with wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) operation is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The proposed chip consists of a polarization diversity structure and microring resonator-based mode converter. By selecting either horizontal or vertical linear polarization at input single-mode fiber, the input signals can be either converted to LP11 mode or maintained LP01 mode in output few-mode fiber over the C-band. For demonstration, four WDM channels with 40-Gb/s ON-OFF-keying modulation are successfully processed, with an average power penalties of 1.8 and 2.8 dB for two orthogonal linear polarization inputs, respectively. The proposed circuit is promising to process future multidimensional multiplexing signal.