Large N×N waveguide grating router
AssigneeAgere Systems Guardian Corp.
InventorsPietro Arturo Bernasconi, Christopher Richard Doerr, Corrado Pietro Dragone
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Abstract
The limitation of N in an N×N Wavelength Grating Router (WGR) is determined to be because of the intrinsic diffraction characteristics of the grating that occurs when N approaches the diffraction order m at which the grating operates. The N in a N×N WGR device is maximized for input signal channels equally spaced either in frequency or in wavelength. For the wavelength case, N is increased by appropriate changes in the spacing of the output ports of the WGR and/or by slightly correcting the by channels wavelengths.
Claims7
A waveguide grating router (WGR) comprising an input and an output N×M star couplers connected by M waveguides of unequal length, the input coupler having N equally spaced input ports, each input port for receiving an input signal having N wavelengths or frequencies and the output coupler having N equally spaced output ports, each output port for outputting an output signal having N wavelengths or frequencies, the WGR further characterized by
- said input signal has N wavelengths or frequencies that are unequally spaced in wavelength or frequency.
A method of operating a waveguide grating router (WGR) comprising input and output N×M star couplers connected by M waveguides of unequal length, the input coupler having N equally spaced input ports, the output coupler having N equally spaced output ports, the method comprising the steps of:
- receiving an input signal having N unequally spaced wavelengths or frequencies at each input port, and
- selecting the frequencies or the wavelengths so as to increase a signal transmission coefficient from each of a plurality of the N input ports to a plurality of the N output ports.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.