Compact tunable three-dimensional polymer optical waveguide comb filter

A compact channel spacing tunable polymeric three-dimensional (3D) comb filter has been designed and fabricated. This comb filter is made of three waveguides laid in two different but parallel layers: one is in the lower layer and the other two are in the upper layer. These two waveguides in upper layer do not cross each other but instead each twice cross over the waveguide in the lower layer. At each crossing point an electrode heater is deposited on the top surface to adjust the coupling ratio between these guides. By supplying power to each heater pair, respectively, the channel spacing can be selected to be either 1.6 nm or 0.8 nm; in addition a flat-top spectral response may be obtained at the 1.6 nm channel spacing if power is supplied to both the heater pairs simultaneously. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.