Geometrical optimization of arrayed waveguide grating with low diffraction order

Abstract

Compared with the arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) that widely used as optical wavelength multiplexers and/or demultiplexers (MUX/DMUX) in optical communication networks, AWG of low diffraction order has enormous potential of application in cases that need a large free spectrum range (FSR), to name a few, various integrated optical spectrometer, and wavelength MUX/DMUX in coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) networks. In the current paper, an investigation is conducted on S-shaped antisymmetric design scheme for low diffraction order AWG layouting. To reduce overall AWG device dimension and increase bend waveguide curvature radius uniformity, particle swarm optimization (PSO) with constrained conditions is employed to find optimized geometrical parameters which determine AWG structure. PSO algorithm could reduce by about 50.6% of the AWG dimension compared with previously reported AWG and thus PSO could be a promising optimization method when designing AWG.