Digitally tunable optical filter based on DWDM thin film filters and semiconductor optical amplifiers

We demonstrate a novel digitally tunable optical filter, which is based on dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) thin film filters and semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA). It has the advantages of fast tuning speed, large tuning range, good temperature stability, simple control mechanism. It is also scalable without bringing additional insertion loss. The passband wavelengths are in consistency with those suggested by ITUT.