A 32-channel tunable receiver module for wavelength-division multiple-access networks

We report the realization of a 32-channel tunable optical receiver module for packet-switched multiwavelength computer networks. The tunable receiver consists of a planar array waveguide grating demultiplexer, photodetector array and followed by selectable receivers. The channel selection is based on sequential switching of the received optical signals in stages at the analogue level. Typical receiver sensitivity is -24 dBm at 10 -9, using a 700-Mb/s nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) pseudorandom binary sequence (PRBS). The channel switching time is ∼40 ns.