Optical Switch Array Research Articles

新颖的微流控电调谐空间光开关

A novel space optical switch device of optofluidic is proposed to solve the problems of electrical controlling without mechanical device.The basic structure of the switch includes a core exchange space sandwiched between two optical arrays.The basic unit of array is made from liquid prism as a beam control unit including three kinds of immiscible liquids(water / oil / water).Through the electro-wetting effect,the beam deflection angle of the liquid prism can be adjusted about -15 °~15 °continuously in a specific voltage range(30 ~ 110 V).Thus one can construct a variety of two-dimensional or even three-dimensional optical switch array.

Reconfigurable Optical Add-Drop Multiplexer Using a Polymer Integrated Photonic Lightwave Circuit

We have developed a fully functional reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) switch module using a polymer integrated photonic lightwave circuit technology. The polymer variable optical attenuator (VOA) array and digital optical switch array are integrated into one polymer PLC chip and packaged to form a 10-channel VOA integrated optical switch module. Four of these optical switch modules are used in the ROADM switch module to execute 40-channel switching and power equalization. As a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) filter device, two C-band 40-channel athermal arrayed waveguide grating WDMs are used in the ROADM module. Optical power monitoring of each channel is carried out using a 5% tap PD. A controller and firmware having the functions of a 40-channel switch and VOA control, optical power monitoring, as well as TEC temperature control, and data communication interfaces are also developed in this study.

Fabrication of 10-Channel Polymer Thermo-Optic Digital Optical Switch Array

We present a 10-channel polymer thermo-optic digital optical switch (DOS) array with very low optical crosstalk. The 10-channel DOS array has a crosstalk-improved structure in which radiation-type attenuators are integrated in a series with a conventional 1 times 2 DOS. It is fabricated using a quartz substrate on which grid patterns for dispersion of stray light are formed to reduce the optical crosstalk. The measured crosstalk values are as low as -45 dB at a low electrical power of 50 mW. Insertion losses of less than 1.35 dB are achieved for all channels.

Tunable coupled-ring-resonator of thermally actuated optical switch array

In this research, we design tunable micro-ring resonators and propose the employment of an integrated control circuit to compensate for the fabrication error, and tune as well as lock the wavelength in a thermal-actuated ring-type optical switch through an amplitude modulation scheme. Additional functionalities can also be added in this circuit by tailoring externally the roundtrip loss or coupling constants of the ring. The design concept can be easily scaled up for a large array optical switch system without much change to the terminal numbers thanks to the three-dimensional hierarchy of the high gray-scale control circuit design, which effectively reduces the terminal numbers to the cubic root of the total control unit numbers. The integrated circuit has been designed, simulated, as well as fabricated, and demonstrated a decent performance with free spectral range (FSR) equal to 1.5 nm at 1532 nm and very accurate wavelength modulation to 0.3 nm within 0.01 nm fluctuation for a thermal actuated ring type optical switch.

Design and fabrication of silicon-based 8×8 MEMS optical switch array

Silicon-based torsion-beam 8×8 optical switch array are designed and fabricated with bulk silicon micromachining technology. Torsion beams and cantilever beams with reflective micromirror situated on the same wafer are fabricated on (110) silicon. During fabricating the torsion beam actuating structure, the etched hillocks on (110) plane are obstacles to achieve smooth torsion beam. It is put forward the reasonable ratios mixtures of HF, HNO3 and CH3COOH to improve the processes of fabricating torsion beam actuating structure. The slanted under electrodes that can reduce the actuating voltage are designed and fabricated on tilting (111) plane by wet chemical etching. According to the etching characteristics of (111) silicon in KOH solution, two designed photomask patterns are proposed in this paper. According to the experimental results, for the 180μm displacement of mirrors, the device presents the switching time less than 6ms and the actuating voltage about 65V. It shows that this optical switch array can make the meet of the optical communication network.

Single-crystalline Bi2S3 nanowire network film and its optical switches

A single-crystalline bismuth sulfide(Bi2S3) nanowire network film at a centimeter scale is fabricated by the facile hydrothermal method. TheBi2S3 film is easily tape-transferred onto a soft plastic substrate, and is further used to fabricate opticalswitches by screen-printing an Ag electrode array on its top. Our studies demonstrate that theBi2S3 nanowire network has a pronounced increase in conductance upon exposure to visiblelight, and possesses a very fast response time of about 2 ms. This work providesa simple and economic method to fabricate a high performance optical switcharray and could offer great potential for a low cost, mass-manufacturing process.

A Compact and Low Power Consumption Optical Switch Based on Microrings

A compact optical switch array based on microrings using a high-index-contrast waveguide is presented with excellent performance. The 84 optical switch matrix occupies just 103mm and its extinction ratio is greater than 30 dB at a low control power consumption of 0.1 W per unit cell. The drop loss is around 2 dB. This device is particularly suitable for applications as a tunable filter array and wavelength selective optical switch.

Enabling Tb/s Photonic Routing: Development of Advanced Hybrid Integrated Photonic Devices to Realize High-Speed, All-Optical Packet Switching

We present recent advances in photonic integration introduced by integration-related European research project IST-MUFINS. The contribution of the project in the progress of a functional photonic integration is outlined, from device fabrication to device application focusing on photonic routing using multielement photonic chips. Specifically, we report on the transition from single-element to multielement photonic devices with the fabrication of hybrid integrated arrays of optical switches exploiting and upgrading the silica-on-silicon hybrid photonic integration. We demonstrate how the enhanced processing power and capacity of these components can be exploited to implement key functionalities required in next-generation fully integrated terabits per second photonic routers.

Implementation of an All-Optical Time-Slot-Interchanger Architecture

We demonstrate a wavelength-converter-based optical time-slot-interchanger. It consists of three cascaded programmable delay stages and employs the first hybrid integrated, on a chip, quadruple array of semiconductor optical amplifier Mach-Zehnder interferometer switches. It exhibits error-free operation with 10-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero packets and a power penalty of 1.8 dB.

A polymeric optical switch array based on arrayed waveguide grating structure

A novel 1 × N optical switch array based on arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) structure is presented in this paper. The device is designed for polymeric materials with a large negative thermooptic (TO) coefficient, which is employed to change the imaging effect and to realize optical switching. When input wavelength is located in a special waveband, the optical signal will image at different output channel as temperature changes. The two-dimensional finite difference beam propagation method (FD-BPM) has been used to simulate a 1 × 9 optical switch array. The insertion loss of this switch array is below 1.37 dB and the extinction ratio is better than 31 dB at 1550 nm, when the coupling and propagation loss is neglected. The optimum design and the simulation results show that this structure could be a multiple wavelengths switching at the same time.

Fabrication of 128×128 element optical switch array by micromachining technology

Polycrystalline VO2 thin films were obtained on Si substrates by ion beam sputtering deposition and annealing in flowing Ar gas. SEM images indicate that VO2 thin films were grown into compact surfaces. Four-probe measurements indicated that the VO2 thin films own good electrical homogeneity. After the films' production, micromachining technology including lithography, reaction ion etching and metallization connection processes was used to produce the optical switch array. As a result, the 128×128 element optical switch array was achieved.

Fabrication of 128×128 element optical switch array by micromachining technology

Polycrystalline VO 2 thin films were obtained on Si substrates by ion beam sputtering deposition and annealing in flowing Ar gas. SEM images indicate that VO 2 thin films were grown into compact surfaces. Four-probe measurements indicated that the VO 2 thin films own good electrical homogeneity. After the films’ production, micromachining technology including lithography, reaction ion etching and metallization connection processes was used to produce the optical switch array. As a result, the 128×128 element optical switch array was achieved.

Fabrication of Movable Mirror-Array Structure Using Hot-Embossing for Optical Switch Applications

A new micro hot-embossing process which combines the high accuracy of silicon micromachining process and low cost production of forming process was reported. A movable cantilever-array structure with vertical mirrors were designed under the limitation of hot-embossing fabrication and material properties of polymer. The cantilever has non-uniform width optimized for electrostatic actuation and high-density array configuration. Two metal molds were transferred by electroplating from silicon structures which is micromachined by DRIE and anisotropic wet etching. The polymer optical switch array chip was produced by hot-embossing between the two molds and laser cutting. Finally, the operation of the assembled 8 × 8 optical switch system was demonstrated.

A Novel Miniature Optical Switch Array with Cantilever Micromirrors Driven by PZT Films

A novel miniature optical switch array integrated with cantilever micromirrors driven by PZT (Lead Zirconium Titanate) films has been proposed. The micromirrors with uniform surfaces are fabricated in several mask steps by anisotropic bulk etching of (110) silicon wafer using KOH solutions with ultrasonic agitation. After the PZT films have been prepared, the wafer is etched from the upper side using Induced Couple Plasma etching (ICP) to form the whole cantilever structure. Each cantilever micromirror is driven by PZT films and is implemented to cut off the laser beam or let it pass through, enabling the switching. The optical switch array composed of the silicon micromirrors can be integrated to form a monolithic 4 2 4 optical crossconnect (OXC) with dimensions of about 6 2 6mm 2 , and is scalable to large array.

A Novel Miniature Optical Switch Array with Cantilever Micromirrors Driven by PZT Films

A novel miniature optical switch array integrated with cantilever micromirrors driven by PZT (Lead Zirconium Titanate) films has been proposed. The micromirrors with uniform surfaces are fabricated in several mask steps by anisotropic bulk etching of (110) silicon wafer using KOH solutions with ultrasonic agitation. After the PZT films have been prepared, the wafer is etched from the upper side using Induced Couple Plasma etching (ICP) to form the whole cantilever structure. Each cantilever micromirror is driven by PZT films and is implemented to cut off the laser beam or let it pass through, enabling the switching. The optical switch array composed of the silicon micromirrors can be integrated to form a monolithic 4 2 4 optical crossconnect (OXC) with dimensions of about 6 2 6mm 2 , and is scalable to large array.

Design of Micro-photonic Beam Steering Systems

The paper introduces a direct photonic beam steering device, which is intended to be used as a large scale all optical switch array for communication networks. The objective is to direct the light beam with two degrees of freedom, so the beam from any of the input ports can be sent to any of the output ports, satisfying the optical and operation requirements. The technology is enabled through the integration of microelectromechanical systems, thin film piezo actuators, optical engineering technologies, and Axiomatic approach to systems design. The curved electrode electrostatic and thin film piezoelectric actuators are simulated in advance to the microfabrication processes. This technology has the potential of many novel applications such as: all optical switching, microendoscopy and gazable microeye among others.

Sinusoidal drives for optical time demultiplexers

Electrically driven arrays of optical switches can be used to time demultiplex a train of high-repetition-rate optical pulses into parallel lower speed circuits. These demultiplexers are used to advantage in high-speed communication systems and in photonic analog-to-digital converters. High-speed operation of an optical demultiplexer is simplified by the use of sinusoidal electrical drives, but suppression of crosstalk is difficult. Adequate suppression of crosstalk in these demultiplexers can be obtained through the use additional modulators. The key to our approach is the use of a combination of harmonically related sinusoidal signals applied to the additional modulators in order to select one out of every M pulses. Results with a 1: 4 demultiplexed photonic analog-to-digital converter operating at 208 MS/s demonstrate the efficacy of the technique.

Two-module stage optical switch network

A large-scale optical switch array based on guided-wave technology using two-module-stage network architecture is proposed. Networks are derived from a generalized three-stage switch network. Two types of architecture are demonstrated. In the first, building blocks in each module are 1/spl times/n, n/spl times/m nonblocking switches or n/spl times/r switch that can route limited numbers of input signal. In the second, crossbar, Banyan, or four-stage wide-sense nonblocking network is used as building blocks. The interconnection is simpler than for the first type. Network architectures that use Banyan or wide-sense nonblocking network building blocks are classed as thinned-out Banyan networks.

Demonstration of high-speed optical packet routingusing vertical coupler crosspoint space switch array

The routing of 10 Gbit/s optical data packets has been demonstrated using a compact InGaAsP/InP vertical coupler optical space switch array. The fast switching speed of the device allows an interpacket guard-band as short as 2 ns to be obtained with an adjacent packet suppression ratio of –50 dB.

Field-programmable smart-pixel arrays: design, VLSI implementation, and applications

A smart-pixel array is a two-dimensional array of optoelectronic devices that combine optical inputs and outputs with electronic processing circuitry. A field-programmable smart-pixel array (FP-SPA) is a smart-pixel array capable of having its electronic functionality dynamically programmed in the field. Such devices could be used in a diverse range of applications, including optical switching, optical digital signal processing, and optical image processing. We describe the design, VLSI implementation, and applications of a first-generation FP-SPA implemented with the 0.8-microm complementary metal-oxide semiconductor-self-electro-optic effect device technology made available through the Lucent Technologies-Advanced Research Projects Agency Cooperative (Lucent/ARPA/COOP) program. We report spice simulations and experimental results of two sample applications: In the first application, we configure this FP-SPA as an array of free-space optical binary switches that can be used in optical multistage networks. In the second, we configure the device as an optoelectronic transceiver for a dynamically reconfigurable free-space intelligent optical backplane called the hyperplane. We also describe the testing setup and the electrical and the optical tests that demonstrate the correct functionality of the fabricated device. Such devices have the potential to reduce significantly the need for custom design and fabrication of application-specific optoelectronic devices in the same manner that field-programmable gate arrays have largely eliminated the need for custom design and fabrication of application-specific gate arrays, except in the most demanding applications.