Hybrid optical star coupler suitable for wavelength reuse

A hybrid optical star coupler is proposed for wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) star networks where a portion of wavelengths are reused. Local star couplers of n/sup 2//spl times/n/sup 2/ type are adopted to prevent ghost signals from being generated. An arrayed waveguide grating is also utilized to interconnect these couplers with low loss and for partial security. We experimentally investigated transmission performance and the result showed that interconnecting links require more power penalty than local links by 0.23 dB.