A 1×4 Polymeric Digital Optical Switch Based on the Thermo-Optic Effect

We present a 1 × 4 Y-branch digital optical switch in which S-bend variable optical attenuators are integrated. The S-bend waveguides, which are always introduced to connect the switch and the standard fiber array, are made use of and designed as variable optical attenuators. A compact device with low crosstalk and larger branching-angle is obtained. The device is fabricated on the thermo-optic polymer materials,and the performance of the device is measured. With an applied driving power of less than 200mW, the device has a low crosstalk of less than - 35dB at a wavelength of 1.55 μm.

Analysis and Design for a Micro Mechanical Optical Switch

The mechanical and electric characteristics of a cantilever beam micro opto mechanical switch are studied theoretically,with which the dependence of the flexion on the applied voltage is derived,as well as the formula of the threshold voltage.The applied voltage,having no connection with the width of the beam,is in inverse proportion to the square of the beam's length.The deflection at the beam's tip cannot exceed 1/3 of the distance between two adjacent electrodes.These results are the basis of the switch design and development.

Fabrication and Electromechanical Characteristics of 2×2 Torsion-Mirror Optical Switch Arrays with Monolithically Integrated Fiber Self-Holding Structures

Novel 2×2 torsion-mirror optical switch arrays are fabricated by using the mixed micromachining based on the surface and bulk silicon microelectronics,then are investigated electromechanically in applied direct and alternating electric fields.When the thickness of the elastic torsion beams suspending the aluminum coated polysilicon micro-mirrors of the switches in the arrays is about 1μm,the electrostatic yielding voltages for driving the mirrors to achieve their ON-state are in the range of 270～290V,and the minimum holding voltages for mirrors ON-state are found as 55V or so.Theoretical analysis manifests that the yielding voltage is more sensitive to beam thickness than other design parameters do about the torsion-mirror switch structures.The lifetime can reach 10 8 times.The estimated shortest switching time of the switches at least lasts for less than 2ms.The force analysis on the two kinds of new fiber self-holding structures integrated monolithically in the chip of the optical switch arrays indicates that the structures can feature self-fixing and self-aligning of optical fibers.

A 16×16 Micro Mirror Array for Optical Switches

This paper reports on the design, fabrication,and performance of a high-reflectivity large-rotation mirror array for MEMS （micro-electro-mechanical system） 16 × 16 optical switches. The mirror in the array can enlarge its rotation an- gles up to 90° and keep a steady state to steer the optical signal. According to the large-rotation behavior, an electro- mechanical model of the mirror is presented. By monolithic integration of fiber grooves and mirrors fabricated by a sur- face and bulk hybrid micromachining process, the coarse passive alignment of fiber-mirror-fiber can be achieved. The re- flectivity of the mirror is measured to be 93.1% ~96.3%. The switches demonstrate that the smallest fiber-mirror-fiber insertion loss is 2. ldB using OptiFocusTM collimating lensed fibers. Moreover,only about ＋- 0.01dB oscillating amplitude of insertion loss is provoked after the device is tested for 15min for 5-90Hz in the vertical vibration amplitude of 3mm.

Multifunctional disk device for optical switch and temperature sensor

A multifunctional surface plasmon polariton disk device coupled by two metal-insulator-metal（MIM） waveguides is proposed and investigated numerically with finite-difference time-domain simulation. It can be used as optical switch and temperature sensor by filling disk with liquid crystal and ethanol, respectively. The simulation results demonstrate that the transmission characteristics of an optical switch can be manipulated by adjusting the radius of disk and the slit width between disk and MIM waveguides. The transmittance and modulation depth of optical switch at 1550 nm are up to 64.82% and 17.70 d B, respectively. As a temperature sensor, its figure of merit can reach 30.46. In this paper, an optical switch with better efficiency and a temperature sensor with better sensitivity can be achieved.

Sub-nanosecond optical switch based on silicon racetrack resonator

We experimentally demonstrate a small-size and high-speed silicon optical switch based on the free carrier plasma dispersion in silicon. Using an embedded racetrack resonator with a quality factor of 7400, the optical switch shows an extinction ratio exceeding 13 dB with a footprint of only 2.2 × 10-3 mm^2. Moreover, a novel pre-emphasis technique is introduced to improve the optical response performance and the rise and the fall times are reduced down to 0.24 ns and 0.42 ns respectively, which are 25% and 44% lower than those without the pre-emphasis.

Observation of V-type electromagnetically induced transparency and optical switch in cold Cs atoms by using nanofiber optical lattice

Optical nanofiber(ONF)is a special tool to achieve the interaction between light and matter with ultralow power.In this paper,we demonstrate V-type electromagnetically induced transparency(EIT)in cold atoms trapped by an ONFbased two-color optical lattice.At an optical depth of 7.35,90%transmission can be achieved by only 7.7 pW coupling power.The EIT peak and linewidth are investigated as a function of the coupling optical power.By modulating the pWlevel control beam of the ONF-EIT system in sequence,we further achieve efficient and high contrast control of the probe transmission,as well as its potential application in the field of quantum communication and quantum information science by using one-dimensional atomic chains.

Design and Simulation of Routing-switching Protocol Based on Optical Switch Array

An optical routing-switching technology based on optical switch array is proposed.The characteristics of the blocking and nonblocking networks are analyzed and compared,odd-even sorting network is used to realize optical routing-switching,relative routing-switching protocol is designed.Simulation test under load shows that it can reduce a blocking effectively and enhance an efficiency of switching.Further,it can transfer the processing and switching within parallel computer from electric domain to optical domain. It can make parallel computer coordinating computing and processing at much more higher speed, storing and transmitting even more efficiently.

Fabrication of high-quality colloidal photonic crystals with sharp band edges for ultrafast all-optical switching

Application of the pressure controlled isothermal heating vertical deposition method to the fabrication of colloidal photonic crystals is systematically investigated in this paper. The fabricated samples are characterized by scanning electron microscope and transmission spectrum. High-quality samples with large transmissions in the pass bands and the sharp band edges are obtained and the optimum growth condition is determined. For the best sample, the transmission in the pass bands approaches 0.9 while that in the band gap reaches 0.1. More importantly, the maximum differential transmission as high as 0.1/nm is achieved. In addition, it is found that the number of stacking layers does not increase linearly with concentration of PS spheres in a solution, and a gradual saturation occurs when the concentration of PS spheres exceeds 1.5 wt.%. The uniformity of the fabricated samples is examined by transmission measurements on areas with different sizes. Finally, the tolerance of the fabricated samples to baking was studied.

Optical switching based on the manipulation of microparticles in a colloidal liquid using strong scattering force

This paper demonstrates the realization of an optical switch by optically manipulating a large number of polystyrene spheres contained in a capillary. The strong scattering force exerted on polystyrene spheres with a large diameter of 4.3 μm is employed to realize the switching operation. A transparent window is opened for the signal light when the polystyrene spheres originally located at the beam centre are driven out of the beam region by the strong scattering force induced by the control light. The switching dynamics under different incident powers is investigated and compared with that observed in the optical switch based on the formation of optical matter. It is found that a large extinction ratio of - 30 dB and fast switching-on and switching-off times can be achieved in this type of switch.

Electrically controlled optical switch in the hybrid opto-electromechanical system

To promote the future quantum information technologies, we demonstrate an electrically driven optical switch based on quantum interference in a hybrid opto-electromechanical system, which consists of an opto-mechanical cavity and an external electric circuit. The key element of our scheme is a moveable mirror of cavity as a charged mechanical oscillator capacitively coupled to a fixed charged plate in a variable capacitor. By adjusting the voltage of the capacitor, the displacement of the moveable mirror is modulated, then the cavity field can be electrically turned on or off due to the detuning of the cavity. Based on the cavity induced transparency, the transparency window can be electrically switched on or off by turning on or off the cavity field. Therefore, the susceptibility of the medium in the cavity can be electrically controlled, i.e., the scheme of the electrically controlled absorption switching can be demonstrated. This electrically driven optical switch will excite a development trend and implementation prospect towards the integration and miniaturization of quantum module device in a chip.

Low power all optical switches

In this paper, we propose a new design of all fiber optical switches by using a high finesse ring resonator (RR) side coupled Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We will show that by compensating the total loss in the RR the switching power can be decreased greatly and by loss, compensating the bistability effect in RR can be cancelled and the switching performance can be improved. In addition, we will show that by using Erbium doped fiber for fabricating the RR we can obtain switching power threshold in mW range.

Ferroelectric Liquid Crystal Optical Switches

The dynamic response of molecular orientation, and the temperature and pulse shape dependences of the switching behavior in ferroelectric liquid crystal are described. The switching speed and the surface energy of ferroelectric liquid crystal are given.

Optimization of Key Parameters in 622-Mb/s Amplitude Shift Keying Labeled 40-Gb/s Return to Zero Differential Phase Shift Keying Optical Switching Network

Optimized are the label extinction ratio and dispersion compensation of an optical label switching transmission system,which employs 40-Gb/s return to zero differential phase shift keying(RZ-DPSK)payload labeled with 622-Mb/s amplitude shift keying(ASK)control data.In our scheme,the receiver sensitivities of payload and label achieves-27.8dBm and-33.5dBm,respectively.After transmitted over 40km,60km and 80km single mode fiber(SMF)(with dispersion compensation)respectively,the payload can be recovered with no power penalty,while the label can be recovered with less than 2dB penalty.

Performance of integrated optical switches based on 2D materials and beyond

Applications of optical switches,such as signal routing and data-intensive computing,are critical in optical interconnects and optical computing.Integrated optical switches enabled by two-dimensional(2D)materials and beyond,such as graphene and black phosphorus,have demonstrated many advantages in terms of speed and energy consumption compared to their conventional silicon-based counterparts.Here we review the state-of-the-art of optical switches enabled by 2D materials and beyond and organize them into several tables.The performance tables and future projections show the frontiers of optical switches fabricated from 2D materials and beyond,providing researchers with an overview of this field and enabling them to identify existing challenges and predict promising research directions.

Integrated optical switch matrices for packet data networks

Integrated circuit technologies are enabling intelligent,chip-based,optical packet switch matrices.Rapid real-time reconfigurability at the photonic layer using integrated circuit technologies is expected to enable cost-effective,energy-efficient,and transparent data communications.InP integrated photonic circuits offer high-performance amplifiers,switches,modulators,detectors,and de/multiplexers in the same wafer-scale processes.The complexity of these circuits has been transformed as the process technologies have matured,enabling component counts to increase to many hundreds per chip.Active–passive monolithic integration has enabled switching matrices with up to 480 components,connecting 16 inputs to 16 outputs.Integrated switching matrices route data streams of hundreds of gigabits per second.Multi-path and packet time-scale switching have been demonstrated in the laboratory to route between multiple fibre connections.Wavelength-granularity routing and monitoring is realised inside the chip.In this paper,we review the current status in InP integrated photonics for optical switch matrices,paying particular attention to the additional on-chip functions that become feasible with active component integration.We highlight the opportunities for introducing intelligence at the physical layer and explore the requirements and opportunities for cost-effective,scalable switching.

Research progresses of SOI optical waveguide devices and integrated optical switch matrix

SOI (silicon-on-insulator) is a new material with a lot of important perform- ances such as large index difference, low transmission loss. Fabrication processes for SOI based optoelectronic devices are compatible with conventional IC processes. Having the potential of OEIC monolithic integration, SOI based optoelectronic devices have shown many good characteristics and become more and more attractive recently. In this paper, the recent progresses of SOI waveguide devices in our research group are presented. By highly effective numerical simulation, the single mode conditions for SOI rib waveguides with rectangular and trapezoidal cross-section were accurately investigated. Using both chemical anisotropic wet etching and plasma dry etching techniques, SOI single mode rib waveguide, MMI coupler, VOA (variable optical attenuator), 2×2 thermal-optical switch were successfully designed and fabricated. Based on these, 4×4 and 8×8 SOI optical waveguide integrated switch matrixes are demonstrated for the first time.

Delay-Differentiated Scheduling in Optical Packet Switches for Cloud Data Centers

We consider differentiated timecritical task scheduling in a N×N input queued optical packet s w itch to ens ure 100% throughput and meet different delay requirements among various modules of data center. Existing schemes either consider slot-by-slot scheduling with queue depth serving as the delay metric or assume that each input-output connection has the same delay bound in the batch scheduling mode. The former scheme neglects the effect of reconfiguration overhead, which may result in crippled system performance, while the latter cannot satisfy users' differentiated Quality of Service(Qo S) requirements. To make up these deficiencies, we propose a new batch scheduling scheme to meet the various portto-port delay requirements in a best-effort manner. Moreover, a speedup is considered to compensate for both the reconfiguration overhead and the unavoidable slots wastage in the switch fabric. With traffic matrix and delay constraint matrix given, this paper proposes two heuristic algorithms Stringent Delay First(SDF) and m-order SDF(m-SDF) to realize the 100% packet switching, while maximizing the delay constraints satisfaction ratio. The performance of our scheme is verified by extensive numerical simulations.

A 7-bit photonic true-time-delay system based on an 8×8 MOEMS optical switch

We demonstrate a 7-bit photonic true-time-delay （TTD） system which uses an 8 × 8 micro-optical-electro- mechanical system （MOEMS） optical switch for phased array antennas （PAAs） beamforming applications. The switch controls the optical signal to pass by the fiber delay lines （FDLs） of different lengths. Different time delays between adjacent channels are obtained due to the chromatic dispersion of FDLs. Therefore, the system cannot be disturbed by the environment. The measured time delay responses are nearly linear with the wavelength spacing between optical carriers as well as the lengths of FDLs, which agrees well with the theoretical analysis.

Orbital-angular-momentum-based reconfigurable optical switching and routing

Orbital angular momentum(OAM) has gained interest due to its potential to increase capacity in optical communication systems as well as an additional domain for reconfigurable networks. This is due to the following:(i) coaxially propagated OAM beams with different charges are mutually orthogonal,(ii) OAM beams can be efficiently multiplexed and demultiplexed, and(iii) OAM charges can be efficiently manipulated. Therefore, multiple data-carrying OAM beams could have the potential capability for reconfigurable optical switching and routing. In this paper, we discuss work involving reconfigurable OAM-based optical add/drop multiplexing, space switching,polarization switching, channel hopping, and multicasting.