Analysis of characteristics of a parallel channel microring resonator electro-optic switch array

Abstract

Based on coupled mode theory, electro-optic modulation theory, and microring resonance theory, a structural model was proposed for a polymer parallel channel microring resonator (MRR) electro-optic switch array, and in the meantime, with a resonance wavelength of 1550 nm, optimization design and simulation analysis were conducted on a eight microrings and nine channels switch array. According to the results of numerical simulation, the free spectral range (FSR) was about 17.71 nm and the 3-dB bandwidth of the output spectrum was about 0.18 nm when the cross-section size of the waveguide core was 1.5 × 1.5 μm2, the confining layer between the waveguide core and the electrode was 2.0 μm thick, the metal electrode was 0.05 μm thick, the coupling gap between the microring and the channel was 0.1 μm, and the microring radius was 12.76 μm. When the voltage of 7 V was applied on microring i of the device in turn, the output optical power Pi of horizontal channel i was the largest, and the output optical power of all the other channels became very small, which meant that the switching function of horizontal channel i was fulfilled. The insertion loss of the device was within a range of 1.39–8.17 dB, and the crosstalk was smaller than −4.8 dB.