A TUNABLE WAVELENGTH DEMULTIPLEXER USING LOGARITHMIC FILTER CHAINS

This paper proposes a novel wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) demu ltiplexer design for dense WDM networks. The proposed demultiplexer co nsists of rectangular shaped periodic frequency filters connected in s eries. These rectangular filters can be formed with an apodized one-di mensional (1-D) photonic crystal structure on a ridged semiconductor w aveguide. A design example is given for such filters. In such designs, we can use a moderate refractive index contrast, in discrete groups o f many layers, to achieve the same stop-band width that we would get w ith a large contrast, Apart from being compact in size, to demultiplex an arbitrary wavelength from N wavelengths, only log(2) N switches an d filter stages are required, This type of filter has a large potentia l to be used in integrated photonic implementation and packet switched dense WDM applications.