Abstract
We apply liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) in 0.8-$mUm standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology to demonstrate a low-cost, high-performance pixelized liquid crystal variable optical attenuator (VOA) with pulse width modulation. We then build a prototype tunable filter by using this VOA along with a grating in the Littrow configuration. With the application of 5-V pulse width modulation, the proposed VOA achieves a 5.6-dB insertion loss, a dynamic range of more than 20 dB, a 50-GHz channel spacing capability, and a polarization-dependent loss (PDL) of less than 0.6 dB at 15-dB attenuation. Our VOA is suitable for applications such as dynamic channel gain equalizers, channel-blocking filters, sub-components of re-configurable add-drop modules, and wavelength selectors.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
H. S. Hinton, T. J. Cloonan, F. B. McCormick, Jr., A. L. Lentine and F. A. P. Tooley: Proc. IEEE 82 (1994) 1632.
K. C. Nguyen: Tech. Dig. Optical Fiber Communication 2002, Anaheim (Optical Society of America, Washington DC, 2002) TuO1.
W. J. Tomlinson: Tech. Dig. Optical Fiber Communication 2003, Atlanta (Optical Society of America, Washington DC 2003) TuM1.
D. T. Neilson et al.: Tech. Dig. Optical Fiber Communication 2002, Anaheim (Optical Society of America, Washington DC, 2002) ThCC3.
O. Solgaard, E. S. A. Sandejas and D. M. Bloom: Opt. Lett. 17 (1992) 688.
D. Dudley, W. M. Duncan and J. Slaughter: Proc. SPIE 4985 (2003) 14.
J. Patel and Y. Silberberg: IEEE Photo. Technol. Lett. 7 (1995) 514.
A. Ranalli, B. Scott and J. Kondis: Proc. 25th European Conf. Optical Communication, Nice, France, 1999, Vol. 1, p. 68.
P. Yeh and C. Gu: Optics of Liquid Crystal Displays (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1999).
E. Lueder: Liquid Crystal Displays (John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 2001).
W. Klaus, Y. Suzuki, M. Tsuchiya and T. Kamiya: Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 34 (1995) 6116.
I. R. Guralnik, V. N. Belopukhov, G. D. Love and A. F. Naumov: J. Appl. Phys. 87 (2000) 4069.
K. Hirabayashi: Opt. Lett. 21 (1996) 1484.
S. Sumriddetchakajorn, N. A. Riza and D. K. Sengupta: Opt. Eng. 40 (2001) 1521.
J. J. Pan, H. Wu, P. Huang, X. Qiu, M. Zhou and F. Zhou: Tech. Dig. Optical Fiber Communication 2003, Atlanta (Optical Society of America, Washington DC, 2003) TuM4.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ide, M., Suguro, A., Hosaka, Y. et al. A Pixelized Variable Optical Attenuator Using Liquid Crystal on Silicon Technology for Tunable Filters. OPT REV 11, 132–139 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10043-004-0132-1
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10043-004-0132-1