16-channel flexible optical passband filter array for CDCF ROADM

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a 16-channel flexible optical passband filter array for colorless, directionless, contentionless, flexible reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer. Utilizing high-resolution diffraction grating for wavelength dispersion and liquid crystal on silicon for wavelength modulation, the filter array can realize adding/dropping 16 independent optical channels with tunable bandwidth and center wavelength. Furthermore, each channel is capable of tuning multiple wavelengths with different bandwidths. The proposed filter array realized remarkable performance, such as less than 6dB insertion loss, 50GHz to 5000GHz bandwidth tuning range, transmission bandwidth covering the full C band, and greater than 30dB optical isolation among the channels.