Recent progress in silicon-based silica arrayed-waveguide grating

Arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) is one of the most important devices in (dense) wavelength divided multiplexing (WDM) technology. Major work is devoting to improving its performance and extending its function. In the paper measures to improve several characteristic parameters and AWG-based functional modules are reviewed.The characteristic parameters include crosstalk, wavelength response and polarization. The functional modules include 16 add/drop multiplexer, multiwavelength ring-laser,and so on so forth.