Thermo-Optically Tunable Silicon AWG With Above 600 GHz Channel Tunability

With the ever-increasing demand for small channel spacing in the dense wavelength division multiplexing technology, and the wavelength shift arising from the fabrication dimensional sensitivity of the silicon optical communication devices, wavelength tuning methods for silicon multiplexer/demultiplexer are therefore of great interest. Thermo-optically tunable silicon arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) multiplexer/demultiplexer using TiN heater has been demonstrated for the first time. Reduced impact of fabrication nonuniformity on the AWG effective refractive index is achieved through the waveguide design. Uniform heating is achieved by the heater design, which is analyzed by thermal distribution simulation. Above 600 GHz channel tunability has been demonstrated by simulation and experiment.