WAVEGUIDE ŠOLC FILTER TUNABLE BY MEANS OF EXTERNAL ELECTRIC FIELD

 

Anton I. Ignatov, Alexander M. Merzlikin

Institute for Theoretical and Applied Electromagnetics, RAS. Moscow, Russia.

Received August 30, 2011

 

Abstract. A novel model of a tunable optical waveguide filter based on a corrugated planar waveguide made of electrooptic material is proposed. The principle of operation of the filter is based on à degenerate band gap manipulation. Degenerate band gaps form due to coupling of TE and TM modes of the waveguide under the application of the external electric field inducing the anisotropy of the waveguide material. Characteristics of à degenerate band gap are analyzed with the coupled mode method in approximation of the corrugation amplitude being small compared to the waveguide thickness. The anisotropy is also supposed to be weak. The proposed filter is much easier to fabricate than multilayer Šolc filters whose physical principles of operation are analogous.

Key words: tunable optical filter, tunable optical switch, corrugated waveguide, photonic crystal band gaps.