Monolithic Flexible-Grid 1$\,\times\,$2 Wavelength-Selective Switch in Silicon Photonics

Abstract

We describe in further detail a demonstration of a monolithic 1 <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\times\,$</tex></formula> 2 silicon wavelength-selective switch in silicon photonics. The switching has a flexible grid with 32 pixels on a pitch of 100 GHz. It is extremely compact, being only 3.0 <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\,\times\,$</tex> </formula> 5.5 mm <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$^2$</tex> </formula> , and it can potentially be mass-produced by a silicon foundry. It requires improvements in many characteristics, though, most notably insertion loss, resolution, and pixel count.