Broadband 1×2 liquid crystal router with low thermal dependence for polymer optical fiber networks

Abstract

A1Â 2 optical router based on an achromatic liquid crystal polarization rotator has been designed and experimentally tested. The router can work in the spectral range used in stepindex polymer optical fiber networks (400-700 nm) with low wavelength and temperature dependences. The theoretical design is fast and simple and has good agreement with experimental results. Experimental crosstalk is lower than À18.68 dB for both outputs, even with thermal variations of 10 1C. Performance improvement with respect to previously reported devices with similar structure has also been analyzed.

Recent Advances in Wavelength-Division-Multiplexing Plastic Optical Fiber Technologies

“…10.a) with optimized polarization rotators (PRs) based on structures of stacked LC cells, as reported in [69]. Figure 12 shows an example of the performance of the broadband 1×2 LC-OR reported in [69]. The proposed design illustrated above is composed by 3 LC cells and allows a significant improvement of the spectral response of LC optical routers, compared to those previously reported [43,62,70] in a broadband range.…”

“…These two limitations can be overcome by replacing the twisted nematic cells (see Fig. 10.a) with optimized polarization rotators (PRs) based on structures of stacked LC cells, as reported in [69]. Figure 12 shows an example of the performance of the broadband 1×2 LC-OR reported in [69].…”

“…This performance is required for routing channels in SI-POF-WDM networks uniformly, since in these networks the channels may have wide bandwidths and the proposed grid is very wide, as it was aforementioned. In [69] it has been shown that the router performance is quite constant with temperature changes of up to 10 °C. And it was also demonstrated that it is able to control the split ratio of the output power with good uniformity in the range from 400 nm to 700 nm.…”

“…Literature provides many optical filtering and interleaving devices. Some filters are based on birefringent structures such as the Lyot and Solc filters due to their low dispersion, high reliability, easy fabrication process and low cost [75], with recent applications in VIS for POF networks [69,74]. However, these solutions mainly operate in DWDM systems (infrared range).…”