Development of Interference Wedged Structures and their Applications in Hardware Base of Optical Communications

Having an essential experience [2]–[5] in the field of Interference Wedged Structure (IWS), we introduce a new advantageous element of this type – Composite Tunable Interference Wedged Structure (CTIWS). The CTIWS is Iist-Iike sequence of superimposed wedged layers each with reflecting surfaces. For conveniently chosen apex angles and thickness of the layers, the CTIWS can assure high spectral selectivity (to ∼0.01nm and less in spectral range of ∼10 nm and more) and smooth tunability by simple sliding of the structure along all wedge arm (∼ few cm). We have developed simple manner for physical description of IWS and especially CTIWS by convenient adaptation of the Fabry-Perot theory. We show that for the most important practical cases the results are similar to the obtained by more complex exact analytical treatment. The useful for the application new experimental results are carried out. On the base of IWS and CTIWS, applying convenient architecture, we have introduced and investigated new Iossless Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) element with independent tuning of each output/input. We considered the realization for the case of fiber optic systems of interest for optical communications.