1 × 2 Optical Router With Control of Output Power Level Using Twisted Nematic Liquid Crystal Cells

Abstract

In this work, a reconfigurable 1 × 2 optical router has been designed and experimentally tested. The router allows blocking or redirecting the input light beam to only one of the output ports or to the two output ports simultaneously. A control of the optical power level at each output has also been carried out. As the optical input power fluctuates, the output power is monitored and a feedback control loop adjusts the attenuation and maintains the output power level at a relatively constant level.

Keywords:

• Optical routing
• optical power level control
• polarization management
• protection and recovery applications

Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the Spanish CICYT (grant no. TEC2009-14718-C03-03) and CAM (grant. no. S2009/ESP-1781)