Design and applications of silica-based planar lightwave circuits

Planar lightwave circuits (PLCs) are waveguide devices that integrate fiber-matched optical waveguides on silicon or glass substrate to provide an efficient means of interaction for the guided-wave optical signals, PLCs provide various important and functional devices for optical wavelength-division multiplexing, time-division-multiplexing systems, and subscriber networks. This paper reviews the recent progress and future prospects of PLC technologies including arrayed-waveguide grating multiplexers, optical add-drop multiplexers and hybrid optoelectronics integration technologies.