| One key factor in obtaining high performance optical networking is wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). This dissertation summarizes optimal design methods for passive grating-based WDM structures. Engineering tradeoffs are emphasized with a set of normalized parameters, presenting a unified frame on such critical issues as temperature sensitivity of a multiplexer and data rate limit on a WDM channel.; Experiments are carried out on coarse WDM and dense ones with channel spacing varying from 0.8nm to 30nm. The achievement of insertion loss below 3dB and constant athermal operations give a very positive outlook for building completely passive structures. Experiments up to 12.5Gb/s/channel confirm this study's pulse-broadening model on diffraction/dispersion-based WDM.; This dissertation proposes and designs an innovative cascaded architecture for three-dimensional multiple optical wavelength interconnections (3-D MOWIs). Through the use of wavelength-selective diffractive optical elements (WSDOEs), multiple optical functions (WDM, SDM, focusing, beam shaping, etc.) are integrated in a compact system, which could be important for both short-range optical networking as well as integration-greedy applications.; This study on chirp transforms and the realization of a high-precision fast transform algorithm are very useful. The application of this method solves the multi-layered WSDOEs for 3-D MOWIs and simulates the performance of grating-based WDM structures. Digital signal/image processing could also benefit from the results presented in this study. |
