1[formula omitted]3 optical switch with a V-shaped microchannel

Abstract

A 1×3 optical switch with a V-shaped microchannel is proposed. It can selectively switch optical signals from one channel to another by controlling liquid and air in the V-shaped microchannel. Moreover, it has a simple structure, small volume, very wide operating waveband (from visible light to near infrared), small crosstalk, large extinction ratio and small polarization dependent loss. This 1×3 optical switch can form 1×N, 2×N and M×N switch arrays. The optical transmission characteristics are discussed. The research results indicate that the microchannel width has great influence on the switch performances and the optimum width is 4μm. After the structure and parameters are optimized, the crosstalks of the optical switch are between -25.1 dB and -48.6 dB for 1550 nm wavelength. Moreover, the insertion loss are respectively 0.44 dB, 0.20 dB and 0.47 dB for 1550 nm wavelength and 0.30 dB, 0.18 dB and 0.31 dB for 1310 nm wavelength at three exit ports. In addition, the switch arrays based on this 1×3 optical switch are also introduced.