96-Channel on-chip reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer for multidimensional multiplexing systems

Abstract The multi-dimensional multiplexing technology is very promising for further increasing the link capacity of optical interconnects. A 96-channel silicon-based on-chip reconfigurable add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) proposed and demonstrated first time to satisfy demands in hybrid mode/polarization/wavelengthdivision-multiplexing systems. present ROADM consists a six-channel mode/polarization de-multiplexer, 6 × 16 array microring-resonator (MRR)-based wavelength-selective switches, multiplexer. With such ROADM, one can add/drop signals to/from any channels multimode bus waveguide arbitrarily. For designed fabricated chip, there are more than 1000 elements integrated monolithically, including 96 MRRs, 576 crossings, 192 grating couplers, micro-heaters, 112 pads, six polarization-splitter-rotators (PSRs), four asymmetric adiabatic couplers directional couplers. channel added/dropped with excess loss about 5–20 dB, inter-mode crosstalk <?12 inter-wavelength <?24 dB. system experiments by using 10-GBaud quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signals, showing that observed signal noise ratio (OSNR) power penalties induced less 2 dB at BER 3.8 10 ?3 .