Study of all-fiber flat-top passband interleaver based on 2 × 2 and 3 × 3 fiber couplers

An all-fiber interleaver of cascaded Mach-Zehnder interferometer (CMZI) using a 2 × 2 and three 3 × 3 fiber couplers with almost rectangular wavelength response is developed by using a new configuration. Based on the digital approximation method of Fourier series, the relationships among the coupling ratios of the couplers, the length difference of interference arms and the intensity transmission spectrum are analyzed. The results indicate that a uniform flat-top spectral response can be obtained by the configuration when the length difference of interference arms and the coupling coefficient of the couplers, with some certain values, are given. The passband and stopband of optical interleaver are improved remarkably. Compared with conventional CMZI using 2 × 2 fiber couplers, the most advantage of the present method is that the coupling ratio of couplers can be controlled accurately because the interference effect of the monitor light can be sheered away in the course of fabricating couplers. A novel structure of filter is fabricated by using the fused biconical taper technics in experiment. The experiment results are in good agreement with the analytical ones.