A high-performance ultracompact optical interleaver based on double-ring assisted Mach-Zehnder interferometer

Abstract

We present an ultracompact and high-performance optical interleaver based on a microring assisted Mach-Zehnder interferometer using an ultrahigh-index-contrast waveguide (17% Δ). The device, a 100/ 200-GHz interleaver at 1.55-μm region, exhibits flat and nearly square passband and better than -30-dB stopband extinction ratio. Fiber-to-fiber loss is -2.2 dB. Passband bandwidth is 90 and 121 GHz at -1 and -20 dB, respectively. The dimension of this interleaver chip is 12 × 1 mm2. Design optimization is also discussed for further performance improvement. © 2007 IEEE.