An Ultra-Compact, Narrow-Bandwidth, and High-Density Channel Photonic Integrated Channelizer Based on Serial Arrayed Waveguide Grating Architecture

Abstract

An ultra-compact, narrow-bandwidth, and high-density photonic integrated channelizer has been developed on a silicon nitride platform and demonstrated for parallel processing of wide band hyperspectral microwave spectra. This device is based on an updated generation of arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) named serial-AWG (SAWG). The design consists of 33 tunable optical delay lines and 10 output channels. Fabrication inaccuracies are compensated by the use of metal heaters to obtain narrow bandwidth and channel separation, and high side lobe suppression. Our experimental results demonstrate ten 2.6 GHz-bandwidth channels, separated by 3.9 GHz and with 20 dB of side-lobes suppression.