Multifunctional Polymer Mach–Zehnder Optical Switch/Filter Using Side-Coupled Electrooptic Microring Array

Structure and design were proposed for a kind of novel multifunctional M × N microring array side-coupled Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) electrooptic switch/ filter. The device can be operated as a notch or bandpass filter by applying voltages on the under-reference MZI arm, and it can also serve as an optical switch by applying voltage on microrings. The dependence relations of the device´s performances on RSA size (M and N) are thoroughly analyzed and concluded. As a switch, for making driving voltages under both operation states below 5 V, N and M should be within the range of 2-8. For the seven switches (M = 1, 8 ≥ N ≥ 2), their insertion losses are within 0.85-0.35 dB at bar state and within 0.14-1.70 dB at cross state; the crosstalk are within -20.79- -31.11 dB at bar state and within -13.86--20.36 dB at cross state; and their 3-dB electrical bandwidths are 18.5-30.5 GHz, whereas their 3-dB optical bandwidths for ports 1 and 2 are 18.1-40.0 GHz and 19.0-55.0 GHz, respectively. In addition, the needed energy per bit under 10-GHz switching operations is within 0.092-0.697 pJ. Therefore, the proposed multifunctional device shows potential applications, including filtering, routing, and switching, in optical networks-on-chip.