Abstract
This paper reports design of a 2 × 4 hybrid multimode interferometer-Mach-zehnder interferometer (MMI-MZI) configuration consiting of compact thermo-optical switches on the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform. The device consists of two identical MMI slab waveguides as power splitters and couplers that are connected with two identical MMI-based phase shifters, and linear tapers at both ends of the MMIs to minimize the power coupling loss. A thin Al pad is used as a heating element and a trench is created around this pad to prevent heat from spreading, and to minimize loss. The calculated average thermo-optical switching power consumption, excess loss, and power imbalance are 1.4 mW, 0.9 dB, and 0.1 dB, respectively. The overall footprint of the device is 6 × 304 . The new heating method has advantages of compact size, ease of fabrication on SOI platform with the current CMOS technology, and offers low excess loss and power consumption as demanded by devices based on SOI technology. The device can act as two independent optical switches in one device.
Highlights
The consistent and continuous demand/growth of high-speed internet with a higher volume of data processing has prompted the need for high-speed non-blocking optical switches with less sensitivity to polarization and operational wavelength [1]
These functionalities need to accompany with low power consumption, low loss, small device footprint, and a higher number of ports, full operational bandwidth that depends on the number of output ports, and a low production cost
We theoretically demonstrated the operation of 2 × 4 multimode interference optical switch with a foot print of 304 μm2 on SOI technology
Summary
The consistent and continuous demand/growth of high-speed internet with a higher volume of data processing has prompted the need for high-speed non-blocking optical switches with less sensitivity to polarization and operational wavelength [1] These functionalities need to accompany with low power consumption, low loss, small device footprint, and a higher number of ports, full operational bandwidth that depends on the number of output ports, and a low production cost. MMI-based couplers/decouplers as switching configurations offer many advantages such as well-defined decoupling/coupling ratios, lower excess loss, low polarization sensitivity, better dimensional tolerance and/or ease of fabrication, ease of cascading them and integrating with the CMOS technology, and wavelength insensitive transmission spectra, and can support many ports. As demonstrated earlier in Reference [7], an Al heating element is incorporated in the phase shifter arms to realize thermo-optical switching
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