Polymeric waveguide hologram based 4-channel coarse WDM for satellite optical communications

In this paper, a coarse photopolymer grating-based WDM device is proposed and developed to work for a simple point-to-point data transfer between two satellites. The four-channel CWDM device reported herein provides two data streams at 0.83 /spl mu/m and 1.55 /spl mu/m, an inter-satellite tracking channel at 1.06 /spl mu/m, and an intra-satellite communication channel at 1.34 /spl mu/m. This device works properly in the current optical satellite medium bit rate system based on 0.8 /spl mu/m technology and its performance can also be maintained in the future high bit rate system using 1.5 /spl mu/m technology.