Wavelength tunable optical add and drop multiplexer utilising coupled semiconductor waveguides and a striped thin-film heater

A wavelength tunable semiconductor optical ADM is implemented which utilises coupled semiconductor waveguides and a striped thin-film heater. Stable optical characteristics over an 11 nm tuning range, such as insertion loss variation, crosstalk and 3dB optical bandwidth are demonstrated. Through 5Gbit/s demultiplexing experiments it was confirmed that there were no inherent transmission problems due to the device even when the centre wavelength was tuned. Also the possibility of penalty-free tunable demultiplexing was demonstrated for the first time.