Four-Port Optical Switch Having Three Connection States With Si Waveguides

Author

Shoji, Yuya ; Kintaka, Kenji ; Suda, Satoshi ; Kawashima, Hitoshi ; Hasama, Toshifumi ; Ishikawa, Hiroshi

Author_Institution

Network Photonics Res. Center, Nat. Inst. of Adv. Ind. Sci. & Technol., Tsukuba, Japan

Volume

23

Issue

1

fYear

2011

Firstpage

12

Lastpage

14

Abstract

We propose a novel four-port optical switch, which has three possible connection states among the four ports. The device consists of two cross-bar switches, which join with unique connections. We fabricate a four-port optical switch composed of Mach-Zehnder interferometer switches with silicon waveguides; the fabricated switch has a small footprint of 800 × 400 μm². The three-way switching operation with extinction ratios of up to 30 dB and switching time of 40 μs is demonstrated at telecom wavelengths.

Keywords

Mach-Zehnder interferometers; elemental semiconductors; extinction coefficients; integrated optics; optical communication equipment; optical fabrication; optical switches; optical waveguides; silicon; Mach-Zehnder interferometer switches; Si; extinction ratio; four-port optical switch; optical fabrication; optical waveguides; silicon waveguides; three-way switching operation; Loss measurement; Optical device fabrication; Optical switches; Optical waveguides; Silicon; Transmission line matrix methods; Integrated optics; optical device fabrication; optical switches; silicon-on-insulator technology;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2010.2089615

Filename

5608493