We present results from a laboratory characterization of integrated photonic arrayed-waveguide grating chips, which are a modified version of commercial arrayed-waveguide grating multiplexors, for the purposes of creating an integrated photonic spectrograph. Using a robust probing setup we measure the peak total efficiency of the chips to be ~75%. We measure the spectral resolution full-width half maximum to be 0.22 ± 0.02 nm, (giving R = λ/δλ = 7000 ± 700 at 1500 nm). For our device we find the free-spectral range is ~60 nm and slightly larger than the full-width half-maximum of the efficiency profile (53 nm). Finally, we briefly discuss the importance of an integrated cross-dispersion component for the new integrated photonic spectrograph prototype.

Date Published: 20 July 2010
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 7739, Modern Technologies in Space- and Ground-based Telescopes and Instrumentation, 77394H (20 July 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.856782

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7739:
Modern Technologies in Space- and Ground-based Telescopes and Instrumentation
Eli Atad-Ettedgui; Dietrich Lemke, Editor(s)