Compact Multifunctional CWDM Arrayed Waveguide Grating Router Cascaded With Optical Switches

We present a silica-based bidirectional arrayed waveguide grating router (AWGR) chip with cascaded optical switches intended for coarse wavelength-division-multiplexing (CWDM) applications. It performs multiple functions including multi/demultiplexing, switching and wavelength routing within a compact chip size. For uplink signal, we achieved a 1 dB optical bandwidth of more than 15 nm while for downlink signal, a 3 dB optical bandwidth of 12 nm was attained. The cascaded extinction ratios of optical switches are all above 30 dB across a large wavelength range. The results demonstrate its promising potential for flexible and cost-effective CWDM systems.