Amplified Optical Splitters for Optically Controlled Phased Array Antennas

A loss-less, polarization insensitive optical power splitter is proposed here based on the integration of multimode interference couplers and semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). The proposed effort addresses the key issue of integration of passive and active devices such as LPE or MOCVD regrowth interfaces and the possibility of using the same active medium for both the passive splitter, routing waveguides and SOAS. A lx4 splitter will be designed and fabricated in quantum well material with and without regrowth to evaluate the device performance. A novel integratible optical band-pass filter will also be designed and fabricated. Main benefit will be for the phased array antenna phase shifters and optical switching networks.