Micromechanical optical crossconnect with 4-F relay imaging optics

Author

Kozhevnikov, Michael ; Ryf, Roland ; Neilson, David T. ; Kolodner, Paul ; Bolle, Cris A. ; Papazian, Armen R. ; Kim, Jungsang ; Gates, John V.

Author_Institution

Lucent Technol., Bell Labs., Murray Hill, NJ, USA

Volume

16

Issue

1

fYear

2004

Firstpage

275

Lastpage

277

Abstract

We describe a novel optical configuration for a microelectromechanical system (MEMS)-based beam-steering optical crossconnect. It incorporates 4-F imaging optics to relay light to the MEMS chip. This makes the system more tolerant to fiber-microlens misalignment. The use of a relay plus Fourier lens and patterned mirror removes the skew angle on the MEMS array and reduces the maximum angle for the MEMS mirror. A prototype 110 × 110 crossconnect employing imaging optics was constructed to validate the approach. This achieved a mean fiber-to-fiber insertion loss of 2.9 dB.

Keywords

Fourier transform optics; beam steering; microlenses; micromirrors; microrelays; optical interconnections; optical switches; 2.9 dB; 4-F relay imaging optics; Fourier lens; beam-steering optical crossconnect; fiber to microlens alignment; microelectromechanical optical crossconnect; optical interconnect; optical signal provisioning; patterned mirror; prototype crossconnect; skew angle; uniform loss distribution; Insertion loss; Lenses; Microelectromechanical systems; Micromechanical devices; Mirrors; Optical beams; Optical fiber losses; Optical imaging; Prototypes; Relays;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2003.819416

Filename

1256023