Polarization-transparent silicon photonic add-drop multiplexer with wideband hitless tuneability

Abstract Flexible optical networks require reconfigurable devices with operation on a wavelength range of several tens nanometers, hitless tuneability (i.e. transparency to other channels during reconfiguration), and polarization independence. All these requirements have not been achieved yet in single photonic integrated device this is the reason why potential photonics still largely unexploited nodes communication networks. Here we report fully-reconfigurable add-drop silicon filter, which can be tuned well beyond extended C-band (almost 100 nm) complete (>35 dB channel isolation) transparent (1.2 dependent loss) way. This achievement result blended strategies applied design, calibration, tuning control device. Transmission quality assessment dual Gbit/s (QPSK) 200 (16-QAM) signals demonstrates suitability for dynamic bandwidth allocation core networks, backhaul intra- inter-datacenter interconnects.