We fabricated a tunable and polarization-insensitive arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) 1616 multiplexer that operates around the wavelength of 1. 55 µm using fluorinated polyimides. The wavelength channel spacing was 0. 8 nm, and the 3-dB passband width was 0. 26 nm. The insertion loss at each channel was from 8 to 12 dB, and the crosstalk was less than -28 dB. The transmission pass wavelength was tuned over a wide range of 6 nm by heating from 24 to 64. The slope of the temperature dependence of the pass wavelength was -0. 15 nm/, which is ten times that of a silica-based multiplexer. Polarization-insensitivity was achieved by fabricating a film AWG multiplexer, which was formed by removing the silicon substrate and annealing at 350. The polarization-dependent wavelength shift was smaller than the spectrum analyzers wavelength resolution of 0. 1 nm.

We have developed a 22 digital optical switch (DOS) composed of four 12 DOS elements and a thermo-optic wavelength tunable filter using silicone resin waveguides. The 22 DOS operated with a switching power of 380 mW, a very low crosstalk of less than -60 dB, and a low insertion loss of less than 2.5 dB at 1.55 µm. We have also developed two types of polymer thermo-optic wavelength tunable filter with a pair of triangular phase shifters. One filter is designed for a large-scale WDM system (32 channels, 0.8 nm spacing) and the other for a small-scale WDM system (10 channels, 0.8 nm spacing). We optimized the arrayed waveguide number, reducing the operating power required by these filters. Moreover, they both operated with a low crosstalk of < -25 dB.

We have developed a polymer tunable wavelength filter using cross-linked silicone as a waveguide material for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems. The filter operated with a low insertion loss of 3.6-4.1 dB, a low crosstalk of < -30 dB, and a wide tuning range of 10 nm in the 20 to 80C temperature region without any changes in the spectral profile. We investigated the optical characteristics of the 32-ch WDM signals transmitted through the filter. We realized a stable filtering operation by introducing a feedback system. We also applied the filter to a WDM/SCM (subcarrier multiplexing) broadcast-and-select LAN system. We were able to realize a LAN system which operated at 6 Mbit/s and had 3200 channels by using 10-wavelength WDM signal. This suggests that our polymer tunable wavelength filter is suitable for practical use.