In order to improve the transmission performance of the conventional Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI), a novel interleaver combining an "8"form ring resonator with a planar 3×3 single fiber coupler is proposed. Based on the phase modulation provided by the ring resonator, a flat filtering response is obtained by optimizing the coupling angle of resonator. The output expression is derived and numerical simulation is performed. The simulation indicates that the 0.5 dB passband and 25 dB stopband of the proposed interleaver are simultaneously improved remarkably, which are much wider than those of the single-stage MZI and the two-stage MZI interleavers, and the filtering performance of the proposed interleaver, which achieves a nearly square spectrum response, is also much better. Compared with the interleaver based on an asymmetrical MZI with a resonator in one arm, there is no difference between the intensities of two coherent beams in the condition of considering the influence of the propagation loss. Theoretical analysis shows that the influence of the propagation loss on extinction ratio can be effectively reduced.
