Demonstration of a 3 texttimes 4 tunable bandwidth WSS with tunable attenuation using compact spatial light paths

“M × N wavelength selective switch (WSS) is a core component to address wavelength conflict in an optical switching node. In this paper, we design and experimentally demonstrate a performance enhanced 3 × 4 tunable bandwidth WSS (TBWSS) with tunable attenuation across the full C-band, and using compact spatial light paths. Wavelength channels from any input optical fiber port can be switched into any output optical fiber port with best insertion loss (IL) of 8.4 dB and worst IL of 12.5 dB. The attenuation tuning range can reach up to 35 dB. Compared to previous demonstrations, more than 2 dB IL improvement is achieved. Based on the proposed compact spatial light paths, the number of input and output ports can be easily extended to 10 and 20, respectively.”