Switchable Optical Interleaver
In a switchable interleaver, there are two operation modes: *Mode A: All pass *Mode B: Interleaver
In Mode A, the system operates at any channel spacing, in which all channels pass through the device and output from one of the two output ports as if there is no extra device inserted. When the system is switched to Mode B, the device operates as a normal optical interleaver, such 50-100GHz interleaver. The working principle is schematically shown below. In Mode B, the device could be a standard symmetric interleaver, or an asymmetric interleaver. Channel spacings are not limitted to 50-100GHz. They can be any frequency pair: between N-GHz and 2N-GHz.
