Construction of large scale switch matrix by interconnecting integrated optical switch chips with EDFAs

Abstract

Large scale optical switches are essential components in optical communication network. We aim to build up a large scale optical switch matrix by the interconnection of silicon-based optical switch chips using 3-stage CLOS structure, where EDFAs are needed to compensate for the insertion loss of the chips. The optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) performance of the resulting large scale optical switch matrix is investigated for TE-mode light and the experimental results are in agreement with the theoretical analysis. We build up a 64×64 switch matrix by use of 16×16 optical switch chips and the OSNR and receiver sensibility can respectively be improved by 0.6 dB and 0.2 dB by optimizing the gain configuration of the EDFAs.