| The demands placed on the communications network by the explosive growth of the global Internet traffic are pushing the limits of the current communications bandwidth. The technology which is expected to boost the network capacity to the next level and beyond is wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). A key component in a WDM all-optical network is a tunable, wavelength filter with polarization-insensitive operation. The filter should exhibit no polarization-dependent loss for use with low cost, single-mode optical fibers, which do not preserve the polarization state of the propagating optical signal.;This thesis investigates the implementation of a polarization-insensitive, tunable, nematic liquid crystal-based wavelength filter for optical communication networks and other applications in which polarization-insensitive wavelength selection is required. The polarization-insensitive operation of this novel device is verified using theoretical analysis, the actual performance of a prototype device is characterized, and the fabrication limits of the filter are considered using numerical modeling. The future requirements for the demonstrated filter are discussed. |
