Birefringence compensated AWG demultiplexer with angled star couplers.

A new approach to birefringence compensation in arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) is proposed. The star couplers are designed according to Rowland circle construction with an oblique incident/diffraction angle, similar to the case of an echelle grating. Such an AWG design is more general and flexible, and the conventional AWG becomes its special case when the grating angle is zero. By appropriately designing the star coupler shape, the birefringence of the arrayed waveguides can be compensated by that of the slab waveguides. The details of the design method and simulation results are presented.