| CPC G02B 6/12007 (2013.01) [G02B 6/29343 (2013.01); G02B 6/29382 (2013.01); G02B 6/29395 (2013.01); G02F 1/0147 (2013.01); G02F 2203/15 (2013.01)] | 14 Claims |

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1. A Photonic Integrated Circuit (PIC) comprising:
N Ring and Disk type Microstructures (RDMs), N is an integer and greater than 1;
at least one spare RDM, wherein each RDM operates spectrally in a periodic nature and has its spectral operation vary by temperature, wherein the N RDMs and the at least one spare RDMs are drop filters for a receiver; and
circuitry configured to handoff, in-service and hitless for an associated channel in the handoff, any of the N RDMs and the at least one spare RDM for spectral operation based on a current temperature, wherein, for the handoff, a cascading tuning is performed wherein the at least one spare RDM is unlocked spectrally and electro-optically or thermo-optically tuned and locked to a frequency of interest of a current RDM based on the temperature, and the current RDM is unlocked, wherein the circuitry configured to handoff includes a selectable photocurrent summation circuit that sums currents of any two RDMs being in the handoff for in-service operation.
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