Advances in ROADM technologies and subsystems

Until recently, reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexer (ROADM) systems did not exist, their components were unselected, and their market was unclear. Today, every major system vendor has a ROADM offering, and a large number of component vendors have announced ROADM products based on a variety of technologies, some more mature than others. We review the different optical component technologies that have been developed for use in ROADM subsystems, and describe their principles of operation, designs, advantages, and challenges. The technology platforms that we cover include MEMS, liquid crystals (liquid crystal devices (LCD) and liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) technologies), and monolithic and hybrid planar lightwave circuits (PLC) based on silica on silicon and polymer on silicon platforms. For each technology, we describe the corresponding ROADM subsystem architectures in terms of functionality, features, size, cost, and maturity.