Arrayed waveguide dynamic gain equalization filter with reduced insertion loss and increased dynamic range

We present an arrayed waveguide dynamic gain equalization filter with less than 4.5-dB insertion loss and greater than 14-dB dynamic range over the C-band resulting from three improvements: a circulator and polarization splitter combined into one, used to make the device polarization insensitive; segmentation in the star coupler transition regions; and an exponential control wavelength distribution.