Abstract
Active coupled resonator optical waveguide (CROW) structure can significantly enhance the performance of optical gyroscope due to its loss compensation effect and highly dispersive properties. In this paper, we analyze the effect of optical gain and its induced noise, i.e. spontaneous emission noise, on the properties of the active CROWs. A thorough investigation of the impact of various disorder degrees on the performance of the active three dimensional vertically coupled resonators (3D-VCR) gyroscope has been performed. It shows how the disorder interacted with coupling coefficient affects the achievable resolution.Omin of gyroscope, and the degree of disorder will supplant the propagation loss to become an ultimate limitation. Finally, it is shown that the active 3D-VCR gyroscope (the number of ring, N>6) has better resolution.Omin than that of the equivalent resonant waveguide optical gyroscope (RWOG).