High-power electro-optic switch technology based on novel transparent ceramic

A novel high-power polarization-independent electro-optic switch technology based on a reciprocal structtire Sagnac interferometer and a transparent quadratic electro-optic ceramic is proposed and analyzed theoretically and experimentally. The electro-optic ceramic is used as a phase retarder for the clockwise and counter-clockwise polarized light, and their po- larization directions are adjusted to their orthogonal positions by using two half-wave plates. The output light then becomes polarization-independent with respect to the polarization direction of the input light. The switch characteristics, including splitter ratios and polarization states, are theoretically analyzed and simulated in detail by the matrix multiplication method. An experimental setup is built to verify the analysis and experimental results. A new component ceramic is used and a non- polarizing cube beam splitter （NPBS） replaces the beam splitter （BS） to lower the ON/OFF voltage to 305 V and improve the extinction ratio by 2 dB. Finally, the laser-induced damage threshold for the proposed switch is measured and discussed. It is believed that potential applications of this novel polarization-independent electro-optic switch technology will be wide, especially for ultrafast high-power laser systems.

Optimized design and fabrication of nanosecond response electro optic switch based on ultraviolet-curable polymers

A nanosecond response waveguide electro-optic （EO） switch based on ultraviolet （UV） sensitive polymers of Norland optical adhesive （NOA73） and Dispersed Red 1 （DR1） doped SU-8 （DR1/SU-8） is designed and fabricated. The absorption properties, refractive indexes, and surface morphologies of NOA73 film are characterized. The single-mode transmission condition is computed by the effective index method, and the percentage of optical field distributed in EO layer is optimized to be 93.78 %. By means of spin-coating, thermal evaporation, photolithography, and inductively coupled plasma etching, a Mach-Zehnder inverted-rib waveguide EO switch with micro-strip line electrode is fabricated on a silicon substrate. Scanning electron microscope characterization proves the physic-chemical compatibility between NOA73 cladding and DR1/SU-8 core material. The optical transmission loss of the fabricated switch is measured to be 2.5 dB/cm. The rise time and fall time of switching are 3.199 ns and 2.559 ns, respectively. These results indicate that the inverted-rib wave- guide based on UV-curable polymers can effectively reduce the optical transmission loss and improve the time response performance of an EO switch.

High-speed 2 × 2 silicon-based electro-optic switch with nanosecond switch time

A 2 × 2 electro-optic switch is experimentally demonstrated using the optical structure of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer （MZI） based on a submicron rib waveguide and the electrical structure of a PIN diode on silicon-on-insulator （SOI）. The switch behaviour is achieved through the plasma dispersion effect of silicon. The device has a modulation arm of 1 mm in length and cross-section of 400 nm×340 nm. The measurement results show that the switch has a VπLπ figure of merit of 0.145 V.cm and the extinction ratios of two output ports and cross talk are 40 dB, 28 dB and -28 dB, respectively. A 3 dB modulation bandwidth of 90 MHz and a switch time of 6.8 ns for the rise edge and 2.7 ns for the fall edge are also demonstrated.

Strictly non-blocking 4×4 silicon electro–optic switch matrix

The first path-independent insertion-loss（PILOSS） strictly non-blocking 4×4 silicon electro–optic switch matrix is reported. The footprint of this switch matrix is only 4.6 mm×1.0 mm. Using single-arm modulation, the crosstalk measured in this test is-13 dB --27 dB. And a maximum crosstalk deterioration of 6d B caused by two-path interference is also found.

Compact 2×2 parabolic multimode interference thermo–optic switches based on fluorinated photopolymer

In this work, a dual-side parabolic structural(DSPS) multimode interference(MMI) thermo–optic(TO) waveguide switch is designed and fabricated by using novel low-loss fluorinated photopolymer materials. Comparing with the traditional dual-side linear structural(DSLS) MMI device, the effective length of the MMI coupling region proposed can be effectively reduced by 40%. The thermal stability of the waveguide material is analyzed, and the optical characteristics of the switching chip are simulated. The actual performances of the entire MMI switch are measured with an insertion loss of7 dB, switching power of 15 m W and an extinction ratio of 28 dB. In contrast to the traditional MMI optical switch, the new type of parabolic structural MMI TO waveguide switch exhibits lower power consumption and larger extinction ratio. The compact fluorinated polymer MMI TO switches are suitable well for realizing miniaturization, high-properties, and lower cost of photonic integrated circuits.

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.

All-optical switching and nonlinear optical properties of HBT in ethanol solution

This paper demonstrates an all-optical switching model system comprising a single pulsed pump beam at 355 nm and a CW He-Ne signal beam at 632.8 nm with 2-（2＇-hydroxyphenyl）benzothiazole （HBT） in ethanol solution. The origins of the optical switching effect were discussed. By the study of nonlinear optical properties for HBT in ethanol solvent, this paper verified that the excited-state intramolecular proton transfer （ESIPT） effect of HBT and the thermal effect of solvent worked on quite different time scales and together induced the change of the refractive index of HBT solution, leading to the signal beam deflection. The results indicated that the HBT molecule could be an excellent candidate for high-speed and high-sensitive optical switching devices.

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.

Investigation of the influence of key parameters on system performance in all-optical label switching based on FSK/ASK orthogonal modulation format

The transmission characteristics of the optical label switching system based on the FSK/ASK orthogonal modulation format is investigated. The factors that affect the transmission performance, such as the FSK tone space, dispersion compensation and coupler split ratio, are studied by numerical simulation. The proposed scheme is also experimentally demonstrated with a transmission of 155 Mbit/s FSK label combined with 10 Gbit/s ASK payload.

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.

Research and Progress of Service Driven Optical Switching Network in China

National R&D activities on optical switching networkare introduced. Optical switching network testbedswere established in China including 3T-net andOBS ring and mesh network test-bed with the supportof national '863' program. As an importantmodule in OPS network, a novel all-optical serialmulticast mode is discussed.

Enhancement of modulation depth of an all-optical switch using an azo dye-ethyl red film

The polymethyl methacrylate （PMMA） film doped with an azo dye ethyl-red （ER） film is employed to demonstrate the properties of an all-optical switch by its photoinduced dichroism and birefringence. We show how to enhance remarkably the modulation depth of all-optical switches almost to 100% by using two linear polarization beams： one beam is inclined at 45° with respect to the probing beam and serves as a pumping beam, and the other beam is perpendicular to the probing beam and used as an erasing beam. Furthermore, a maximum-to-minimum output intensity ratio of 2000：1 is achieved in experiment, which is very useful and important for optical storages and image displays.

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.

Power-induced polarization switching and bistability characteristics in 1550-nm VCSELs subjected to orthogonal optical injection

The polarization switching（PS） and polarization bistability（PB） characteristics of a 1550-nm vertical-cavity surfaceemitting laser（VCSEL） subjected to orthogonal optical injection are systematically investigated.The simulated results show that the PS and polarization-resolved nonlinear dynamical states of the VCSEL are critically dependent on the changing paths of the injected power.The polarization dynamics for different scanning directions of the injected power is presented to explain the polarization evolution during the formation of PS.In the case of forward scanning injected power,with the increase of frequency detuning level between the VCSEL and the injected light,the injected power required for PS gradually increases for negative frequency detuning but exhibits fluctuations for positive frequency detuning.In the case of reversely scanning injected power,the injected power required for PS displays fluctuant changes within the whole frequency detuning range.Specifically,PS may disappear under certain negative frequency detuning and large bias current.Furthermore,the hysteresis width as a function of the frequency detuning is calculated,and the regions for the appearance and disappearance of PB have been determined in the parameter space of the bias current and frequency detuning.

Performance analysis of optical burst switching node with limited wavelength conversion capabilities

The systematical and scalable frameworks were provided for estimating the blocking probabilities under asynchronous traffic in optical burst switching(OBS) nodes with limited wavelength conversion capability(LWCC) . The relevant system architectures of limited range and limited number of wavelength converters(WCs) deployed by a share-per-fiber(SPF) mode were developed,and the novel theoretical analysis of node blocking probability was derived by combining the calculation of discouraged arrival rate in a birth-death process and two-dimensional Markov chain model of SPF. The simulation results on single node performance verify the accuracy and effectiveness of the analysis models. Under most scenarios,it is difficult to distinguish the plots generated by the analysis and simulation. As the conversion degree increases,the accuracy of the analysis model worsens slightly. However,the utmost error on burst loss probability is far less than one order of magnitude and hence,still allows for an accurate estimate. Some results are of actual significance to the construction of next-generation commercial OBS backbones.

Experimental study of electro-optical-switched pulsed Nd:YAG laser

We report the specification of a compact and stable side diode-pumped Q-switched pulsed Nd：YAG laser. We ex- perimentally study and compare the performance of the pulsed Nd：YAG laser in the free-running and Q-switched modes at different pulse repetition rates from 1 Hz to 100 Hz. The laser output energy is stabilized by using a special configu- ration of the optical resonator. In this laser, an unsymmetrical concave-concave resonator is used and this structure helps the mode volume to be nearly fixed when the pulse repetition rate is increased. According to the experimental results in the Q-switched operation, the laser output energy is nearly constant around 70 mJ with an FWHM pulse width of 7 ns at 100 Hz. The optical-to-optical conversion efficiency in the Q-switched regime is 17.5%.

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.

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.