Proposal of a Novel MMI-Based NxN Non-Blocking Optical Ring Switch

We propose a novel optical NxN switch network based on MMI elements and a nested rings topology. Reductions compared to the conventional Bene breves network include the number of switching elements, power consumption, and physical device area. As much as 20% reduction to the number of elements is achievable for an NxN switch. An equation has also been derived for the number of switches. Since MMI elements in this type of device are required to operate with bi-directional inputs, passive simulation shows that they can exhibit low losses of 0.1dB with -52dB of crosstalk.