Acoustically driven arrayed waveguide grating

Abstract

We demonstrate compact tunable phased-array wavelength-division multiplexers driven by surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in the low GHz range. The devices comprise two couplers, which respectively split and combine the optical signal, linked by an array of single-mode waveguides (WGs). Two different layouts are presented, in which multi-mode interference couplers or free propagating regions were separately employed as couplers. The multiplexers operate on five equally distributed wavelength channels, with a spectral separation of 2 nm. A standing SAW modulates the refractive index of the arrayed WGs. Each wavelength component periodically switches paths between the output channel previously asigned by the design and the adjacent channels, at a fixed applied acoustic power. The devices were monolithically fabricated on (Al,Ga)As. A good agreement between theory and experiment is achieved