Optical communication, telecommunication, and photonic components and subsystems, namely, modules, lasers, optical waveguides, optical filters, modulators, and optical network routers and switches, for use in optical, agile, dynamic, reconfigurable, and intelligent networks; programmable optical network routers, switches and branching switches for remotely tuning or setting wavelengths in optical, agile, dynamic, reconfigurable, and intelligent networks; programmable tunable grating modules for wavelength channel switching and routing; WDM and DWDM optical channel filters; tunable optical channel filters; tunable Bragg gratings; tunable grating modules; grating-based modules for wavelength channel switching and routing; grating-based modules for WDM and DWDM channel filtering; athermal gratings; tunable athermal gratings; passive athermal gratings; athermal channel optical filters; tunable WDM and DWDM optical channel filters; fiberoptic light amplifiers; optical channel analyzers; lasers that are tunable to different optical wavelengths; pump lasers and pump laser stabilizers not for medical use; reconfigurable add/drop routers; add/drop multiplexers; multi-channel add/drop multiplexers; reconfigurable add/drop multiplexers; WDM and DWDM multiplexers; multiplexers; cross connects; optical network routers; optical amplifiers; dynamic-dispersion compensators; dynamic gain equalization optical filters; wavelength converters; interleavers; fixed gain equalizing optical filters; computer programs, software and firmware for optical network and element management, interfacing and control; computer programs, software and firmware for monitoring and controlling optical elements in wavelength agile, dynamic telecommunication, reconfigurable telecommunication, and intelligent networks; optical network routers and switches, light filters, lasers, light waveguides, and modulators, employing the foregoing computer programs, software and firmware