Compact monolithically-integrated hybrid (de)multiplexer based on silicon-on-insulator nanowires for PDM-WDM systems.

A compact silicon hybrid (de)multiplexer is designed and demonstrated by integrating a single bi-directional AWG with a polarization diversity circuit, which consists of an ultra-short polarization-beam splitter (PBS) based on a bent coupler and a polarization rotator (PR) based on a silicon-on-insulator nanowire with a cut corner. The present hybrid (de)multiplexer can operate for both TE- and TM- polarizations and thus is available for PDM-WDM systems. An 18-channel hybrid (de)multiplexer is realized with 9 wavelengths as an example. The wavelength-channel spacing is 400GHz (i.e., Δλ(ch) = 3.2nm) and the footprint of the device is about 530μm × 210μm. The channel crosstalk is about -13dB and the total excess loss is about 7dB. The excess loss increases by about 1~2dB due to the cascaded polarization diversity circuit in comparison with a single bi-directional AWG.