Widely tunable optical bandpass filter by use of polymer long-period waveguide gratings

We report the design and fabrication of a widely tunable optical bandpass filter based on using two identical long-period gratings formed along a polymer channel waveguide with a section of the waveguide core removed. The peak transmission of the passband of the fabricated filter is ∼60% and the bandwidth of the passband is ∼6 nm. The filter is thermally tunable over the C + L band (1520-1610 nm) for both TE and TM polarizations with a temperature control of ∼30°C. © 2006 Optical Society of America.