Low Power Consumption DQPSK Demodulator Using Silica-Based Planar Lightwave Circuit

We demonstrate a low power consumption differential quadrature phase-shift keying (DQPSK) demodulator using silica-based planar lightwave circuit (PLC) technology. A reduction of the power consumption is achieved by suppressing the temperature dependence of the circuit characteristic and eliminating a thermo-electric cooler (TEC) device. The maximum power consumption of the fabricated demodulator with an operating temperature range of -5degC to 70degC is 1.4 W, which is 60% lower than that of a conventional PLC demodulator with TEC. We report experimental results that demonstrate its good demodulation performance for a 43-Gb/s DQPSK system.