On the Performance of High-$Q$ Multiring Optical Filters

We study the performance of multiring-based optical filters in the presence of resonant frequency mismatch among the microrings induced by fabrication error, optical absorption, and nonlinear optical effects, as well as in the context of silicon-on-insulator technology. A general framework is developed to evaluate the worst-case impact of fabrication error and input power on the performance of a bandpass multiring optical filter with Butterworth response.