A flat-top arrayed waveguide grating base on cascading ‘A’ shape multimode interference

Abstract

Today, large bandwidth is required to increase data transmission speeds, this requires an optimized design of the photonic devices. To achieve increasing bandwidth in the wavelength division multiplexing device’s arrayed waveguide grating (AWG). We have cascaded a special ‘A’ shape multimode interference (MMI) structure at the end of the input waveguide. ‘A’ shape structure is better able to get the ideal light field distribution, making the flattening effect more perfect. The ‘A’ shape MMI is designed by the linear spreading equation, the structure of the MMI can be easily and conveniently manufactured in a practical application. Simulation results show that increasing the 1 dB bandwidth to 0.7 nm and the 3 dB bandwidth to 1.6 ± 0.2 nm, the insertion loss is measured at 3.5 ± 0.3 dB, and the channel crosstalk is below −30 dB. It paves the path to achieve increasing bandwidth of AWG.