Rectangular optical filter based on high-order silicon microring resonators

Abstract:

The rectangular optical filter is one of the most important optical switching components in the dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) fiber-optic communication system and the intelligent optical network. The integrated high-order silicon microring resonator (MRR) is one of the best candidates to achieve rectangular filtering spectrum response. In general, the spectrum response rectangular degree of the single MRR is very low, so it cannot be used in the DWDM system. Using the high-order MRRs, the bandwidth of flat-top pass band, the out-of-band rejection degree and the roll-off coefficient of the edge will be improved obviously. In this paper, a rectangular optical filter based on high-order MRRs with uniform couplers is presented and demonstrated. Using 15 coupled race-track MRRs with 10 μm in radius, the 3 dB flat-top pass band of 2 nm, the out-of-band rejection ratio of 30 dB and the rising and falling edges of 48 dB/nm can be realized successfully. This work has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.61205062), the Scientific Research Project of Hubei Education Department (No.B2015191), and the Project of Hubei Province Universities Outstanding Youth Scientific Innovation Team (Nos.T201431 and T201633). E-mail:[e-mail]