Broadband Multiport Dynamic Optical Power Distributor Based on Thermooptic Polymer Waveguide Vertical Couplers

Abstract

We propose a broadband multiport dynamic optical power distributor, which consists of a series of asymmetric vertical optical waveguide directional couplers with thermooptically tunable splitting ratios. To demonstrate the idea experimentally, we fabricated a five-port optical power distributor with four polymer waveguide vertical couplers. The fabricated device is 9 mm long and allows a practically arbitrary optical power distribution to be achieved with a maximum electric power consumption less than 50 mW in any of the couplers and a response time of ~1 ms. The device operates effectively in the whole C-band without significant variations in performance.