Arrayed Waveguide Grating (or AWG) is a method for wavelength division multiplexing or demultiplexing. The approach for multiplexing is to use unequal path lengths to generate a phase delay and constructive interference for each wavelength at an output port of the AWG. Demultiplexing is done with the same process, but reversed.
Arrayed Waveguide Gratings are commonly used in photonic integrated circuits. While Ring Resonators are also used for WDM, ring resonators see other uses, such tunable or static filters. Further, a ring resonator selects a single wavelength to be removed from the input. In the case of AWGs, light is separated according to wavelength. For many applications, this is a more superior WDM, as it offers great capability for encoding and modulating a large amount of information according to a wavelength.
Both the design of the star coupler and the path length difference according to the designed wavelength division make up the significant amount of complexity of this component. RSoft by Synopsys includes an AWG Utility for designing arrayed waveguide gratings.
Using this utility, a star coupler is created below:
