Ball-lens based optical add-drop multiplexers: design and implementation

Author

Jiang, Wei ; Sun, Yingzhi ; Chen, Ray T. ; Guo, Baoping ; Horwitz, James ; Morey, William

Author_Institution

Microelectron. Res. Center, Texas Univ., Austin, TX, USA

Volume

14

Issue

6

fYear

2002

fDate

6/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

825

Lastpage

827

Abstract

Two types of ball-lens based optical add-drop multiplexers (OADMs) are designed and implemented. Insertion losses as low as 0.5 to 0.6 dB for the reflection light-path, and 1.2 to 1.5 dB for the transmission light-path are demonstrated. The 0.5-dB passband is 44% to 50% of the channel spacing and 30% to 33% of the -30-dB stopband for 100- and 200-GHz OADMs. The reflection path has an isolation of 15 dB. In addition to the distinct cost advantage of ball lenses over gradient index lenses, the ball-lens based OADMs also offer a significant simplification in packaging. The external diameter of the package is 5.5 mm.

Keywords

lenses; multiplexing equipment; optical beam splitters; optical communication equipment; optical design techniques; optical fibre filters; optical losses; packaging; wavelength division multiplexing; 0.5 to 0.6 dB; 0.5-dB passband; 1.2 to 1.5 dB; 100 GHz; 200 GHz; 5.5 mm; ball-lens based optical add-drop multiplexers; beam-splitting ball lens; channel spacing; fiber-optic device packaging; insertion losses; optical designs; package external diameter; reflection light-path; thermally expanded-core fibers; thin-film beam-splitting filter; transmission light-path; wavelength-division multiplexing; Channel spacing; Insertion loss; Lenses; Optical add-drop multiplexers; Optical design; Optical losses; Optical reflection; Packaging; Passband; Propagation losses;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2002.1003106

Filename

1003106