Twelve-channel LAN wavelength-division multiplexer on lithium niobate

A twelve-channel local-area-network (LAN) wavelength-division multiplexing (LWDM) filter is proposed and demonstrated with a uniform channel spacing of 4.5 nm (800 GHz) in the O-band of 1270–1330 nm by using x-cut lithium-niobate-on-insulator (LNOI) photonic waveguides for the first time. The present LWDM filter consists of twelve single-channel bandpass filters based on multimode waveguide gratings (MWGs) assisted with a TE /TE mode (de)multiplexer. In particular, two stages of MWGs in cascade are introduced for each single-channel bandpass filter, in order to achieve high sidelobe suppression ratios, thus reducing interchannel crosstalk. For the fabricated twelve-channel LWDM filter, all the channels have very excellent box-like spectral responses with low excess losses of ∼0.6 dB, broad 1-dB bandwidths of ∼2.9–3.4 nm (which is close to 75 % of the channel spacing), and ultra-low interchannel crosstalk of