Wavelength Blocking Filter with flexible Data Rates and Channel Spacing

We present a high-resolution (13.2 GHz) channel-blocking optical filter, which seamlessly supports data rates from 2.5 Gb/s to 160 Gb/s.. The filter consists of a linear array of 64 MEMS micro-mirrors and a high-dispersion echelle grating. The demonstrated device had an insertion loss of 9dB, a loss ripple of 1.2dB and a group delay ripple of 15 ps. Data transmission through the device with various mixed data rate scenarios ranging from 2.5 to 160 Gb/s showed negligible penalty, except at 40Gb/s where a maximum penalty of 1.5dB was observed due to a phase coherent with the blocker filter ripple.