2-D digital micromirror array forms multiple-wavelength add-drop filter

Nov. 1, 1998
Researchers at the University of Central Florida Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) and department of electrical and computer engineering have shown that a two-dimensional (2-D) digital micromirror (DMD) can act as a fault-tolerant add-drop filter for dense-wavelength-division-multiplexing applications. The DMD was coupled by free-space optics to fiber-connected array-waveguide-grating (AWG) multiplexers that form a 2-D in-out feed. Most add-drop filters for telecommu

2-D digital micromirror array forms multiple-wavelength add-drop filter

Researchers at the University of Central Florida Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers (CREOL) and department of electrical and computer engineering have shown that a two-dimensional (2-D) digital micromirror (DMD) can act as a fault-tolerant add-drop filter for dense-wavelength-division-multiplexing applications. The DMD was coupled by free-space optics to fiber-connected array-waveguide-grating (AWG) multiplexers that form a 2-D in-out feed. Most add-drop filters for telecommunications rely on on-chip planar technology with interconnections such as fibers or on-chip arrays of integrated-optic waveguides and switches.

The CREOL design took light at 488, 532, and 632.5 nm through the AWG multiplexers to the very-high space-bandwidth-product DMD (more than 0.5 ¥ 106 mirrors), where macropixels of several hundred micromirrors each switched individual wavelengths. The design is fault-tolerant, partly because individual mirror failures have less effect on optical-alignment sensitivity and because of the overall robustness of the device. Graded-index (GRIN) fiber to GRIN-fiber coupling was shown to be effective when the DMD was the active routing element. The next step is to test the filter at the 1550-nm telecommunications wavelength.

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