Athermal and Tunable Si-Photonic MZI-Echelle Grating Wavelength Demultiplexers

The temperature induced channel wavelength shift in WDM components must be corrected by either active temperature control, active on-chip tuning, or if possible, the use of intrinsically athermal devices. Experimental results are presented for three silicon photonic echelle grating demultiplexers that use a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) to launch light into the echelle device. The temperature induced shifts of the MZI-echelle channel wavelengths are suppressed (athermal) or enhanced (super-thermal), or the channel wavelengths are actively tuned by an on-chip micro-heater. The super-thermal and micro-heater configurations allow channel wavelength tuning with lower tuning power than full chip temperature control.