Reconfigurable mode multiplexering 1×3 phase change optical waveguide switch based on phase change material

Abstract

We propose a 1×3 mode multiplexed optical waveguide switch based on phase change material of Ge2Sb2Se4Te1 (GSST). The big refractive index difference between the two state of the phase change material, which is used to realize the mode matching and mode mismatch between two waveguides. For the 1×3 multiplexer waveguide switch transmission, TE0 mode is set as the input and the modes of TE0 TE1 TE2 will be the output. The characteristics of the switch transmission are calculated and analyzed based on the mode dispersion and mode coupling theory, thus, the structure size and coupling length of the optical waveguide switches are determined. The optical switching device is modeled and simulated by the three-dimensional finite difference time domain (3D-FDTD) method. We mainly discussed insertion loss (IL) and extinction ratio (ER) for evaluating the performance of the device. Three output ports of O1 / TE0, O2 / TE1 and O3 / TE2 show low ILs and high ERs, which separately are 1.19dB, 0.148dB and 0.71dB for ILs, and 16.19dB, 17.2dB and 16.19dB for ERs. The work wavelength is set at C-band with center wavelength of 1550nm.