Theoretical and experimental analysis of side-polished fiber optofluidic variable attenuator

Abstract

We report a broadband variable optical attenuator employing a side-polished single-mode optical fiber placed on an electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD) platform. Both theoretical and experimental analysis have been carried out on this system. Experimentally, a maximum attenuation of 25 dB was obtained in the wavelength range between 1520 nm and 1560 nm. This compares to a predicted maximum theoretical attenuation of 28 dB.