Interferometer Thermo-optic Switch Research Articles

Low-power-consumption polymer Mach-Zehnder interferometer thermo-optic switch at 532 nm based on a triangular waveguide.

We designed and fabricated a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) thermo-optic switch with an inverted triangular waveguide. The inverted triangular waveguide achieves a fundamental mode in a large waveguide dimension, which can reduce the coupling loss and increase the extinction ratio. The triangular waveguide-based switch was simulated and presented higher heating efficiency and lower power consumption than that of the traditional rectangular waveguide-based switch. Compared with the traditional rectangular waveguide-based device, the power consumption of the proposed device is reduced by 60%. Spacing photobleaching was introduced to fabricate the inverted triangular waveguide and adjust the refractive index to minimize the mode number. The insertion loss of the typical fabricated device with a 2 cm length is about 7.8 dB. The device shows an extinction ratio of ∼8.1dB at 532 nm with a very low power consumption of 2.2 mW, and the switching rise time and fall time are 110 and 130 µs, respectively. The proposed single-mode waveguide and low-power-consumption optical switch have great potential applications in visible optical communication fields such as wavelength division multiplexing and mode-division multiplexing.

Graphene-embedded first-order mode polymer Mach-Zender interferometer thermo-optic switch with low power consumption.

Two-dimensional-material integrated thermal optical switches have low power consumption; however, the devices are suffering from high propagation loss due to the two-dimensional material absorption. In this Letter, we present a graphene-embedded polymer Mach-Zender interferometer (MZI) thermo-optic switch, based on the E01x mode and designed to minimize both the loss and power consumption. Based on the symmetry of a three-dimensional structure and the E01x mode, the central embedded graphene electrode structure was simulated with an absorption loss of 0.06dB/cm. Finite element method (FEM) simulations were run to find that the power consumption is 1.57mW. Compared with the top heating electrode, the power consumption of the proposed graphene-embedded device is reduced by 74%. Further, the response speed of the graphene-embedded thermo-optic MZI switch is simulated to be 1.2μs (rise) and 70.6μs (down). This device may be applicable in the two-dimensional integrated low-power-consumption-mode division multiplexer field.

Driving-Noise-Tolerant Broadband Polymer/Silica Hybrid Thermo-Optic Switch with Low Power Consumption

A polymer/silica hybrid Mach–Zehnder interferometer thermo-optic switch is experimentally demonstrated. The switch exhibits low power consumption of 7.8 mW, high extinction ratio of 32.6 dB, and short rise and fall times of 107 and 71 μs, respectively. The output spectrum is 50 nm (1,520–1,570 nm), with the extinction ratio level of over 18 dB. The driving-noise tolerance of this device was experimentally investigated by imposing a generated tunable noise on the pure driving signal. The device reveals a voltage-noise budget as high as 1.1 Vpp relative to a driving voltage of 3.0 Vpp for obtaining higher than a 10-dB extinction ratio.

Submilliwatt thermo-optic switches using free-standing silicon-on-insulator strip waveguides

A low power Mach-Zehnder interferometer thermo-optic switch using free-standing silicon-on-insulator strip waveguides is demonstrated. The air gap provides thermal isolation between the waveguide interferometer arms and the underlying silicon substrate. The highly confined optical modes of the strip waveguides enable miniature heated cross-sections. The heating efficiency from on-chip resistive heaters is enhanced. Measurements of fabricated devices using 100 microm arm lengths at 1550 nm wavelength result in a switching power of 540 microW, a 10% - 90% switching rise time of 141 micros, and an extinction ratio of 25 dB.

Low power <inline-formula><math display="inline" overflow="scroll"><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>×</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></math></inline-formula> thermo-optic polymer waveguide switch

A low-power 2×2 multimode interference-Mach Zehnder interferometer thermo-optic switch is proposed and fabricated using a cross-linkable negative photoresist as core material. The waveguide can be easily fabricated by direct ultraviolet photolithography and wet etching processes. The experiment results show that the switch has a low switching power of 6.9 mW and a switching time of 0.4 ms.

Submicrosecond Submilliwatt Silicon-on-Insulator Thermooptic Switch

Mach-Zehnder interferometer thermooptic switches were made using a thin-silicon-on-insulator material system. The switches use single-mode strip-Si waveguides, 0.26/spl times/0.4 /spl mu/m, operating at 1.5 /spl mu/m. The waveguides were heated directly by passing current through them, resulting in switching power of 6 mW, and a rise time of 0.6 /spl mu/s. By heating both arms of the interferometer differentially, so one arm is cooling while the other heating, the switching-signal input power is reduced to <100 /spl mu/W. In this differential mode, the switching time can be decreased to 50 ns by pulsing the electrical input to 10 mW. Modeling indicates 10-ns-switching time would require /spl sim/23 mW of pulsed power.

Fast and low-power thermooptic switch on thin silicon-on-insulator

We have designed and fabricated Mach-Zehnder interferometer thermooptic switches using a wafer-bonded thin-silicon-on-insulator materials system. The thermally switched devices use single-mode strip waveguides with dimensions 0.26×0.6 μm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> , operating at a wavelength of /spl lambda/=1.55 μm. Useful device characteristics include a low switching power, 50 mW, and a fast rise time of <3.5 μs. These results demonstrate the potential of this high-index-contrast materials system for the design of fast and low-power thermooptic switches and as an active element in photonic integrated circuits.