Abstract EN:

The evolution of the optical network to meshed architecture led to the need to design and deploy reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADM) as routing nodes. The design complexity of such devices has a direct impact on their manufacturing cost. The aim of this thesis is to propose a low cost fully reconfigurable solution. We have chosen liquid crystal technology associated with polarization filters to achieve a tunable wavelength blocker (WB) used as a ROADM subsystem. This technology is simple and mature, and tuning voltages needed are relatively small (a few volts). As the filtering function is a key feature that characterizes any WB subsystem, we have demonstrated that with liquid crystal cells and birefringent plates we are able to tune the central wavelength, the bandwidth and the transmission function shape of these birefringent filters. All of these features have enabled us to design optical devices dedicated to WDM dynamic applications. We then experimentally tested the feasibility of a tunable WB and a 1x2 wavelength switch based on hybrid liquid crystal polarization filters.