Low Power Consumption VOA Array With Air Trenches and Curved Waveguide

Abstract

The paper introduces a 24-channel air-trench isolated Silica-based VOA array. The air trenches thermally insulate the VOAs with etched-free waveguide technologies. Reactive ion etching and wet etching were used at different channel locations to suppress thermal crosstalk and reduce power consumption. When thermal crosstalk is declined by 3 dB for the straight waveguide, the power consumption was decreased from 195 to 95 mW because the lightwave radiation can be scattered by the air trench in the dark state. This crosstalk is improved by 9 dB for the curved waveguide. The polarization dependent loss falls down to 0.28 dB at 15 dB attenuation since the air trench and etched-free waveguide also releases the stress.