SGER: Characterization of InP as a MEMS Material for the Development of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Lossless Cross-Connect Waveguide Switch

我们设想开发一种基于机械换能器的新型光交叉连接开关，用于在光波导间进行交换，如图1所示。它由4根输入光纤连接到开关上的4根输入光波导组成。在每个互连点处，可以沿45轴移动微动工作台，以允许在相对于原始方向的90度处引导光束。通过这种方式，任何输入都可以以非阻塞的方式引导到任何输出。与微光机电系统领域的典型做法相反，开关的机械运动不是使用硅技术实现的，而是直接在III-V化合物半导体中实现[1]。这具有允许有源(即半导体激光器、SOA等)的单片集成的重要优势。以及带有交换结构的无源波导器件(如WDM滤波器、阵列波导栅)。可以预见，这将导致在单个芯片上实现复杂的波长交叉连接系统。切换时间将通过最小化移动部件的质量和将所需的位移减少到大约3微米的距离来优化。在一种可能的状态下被激活的耗散。在4个输出波导上，以单片集成的方式来补偿光损耗，就像我们最近展示的无损1 x 2分路器一样。使用PARC平台技术将模式从无源波导移动到垂直位置的有源波导的无源-有源谐振耦合器可用于积分。

We envision the development of an innovative optical cross-connect switch based on mechanical transducers for switching between optical waveguides as shown in Figure 1. It consists of 4 input fibers connected to 4 input waveguides on the switch. At each of the interconnect points, a microactivated micro-stage can be moved along a 45 axis to allow for steering the beam at 90 with respect to the original direction. In this way, any inputs can be steered to any outputs in a non-blocking way. Contrary to what is typically done in the area of micro-opto-electro-mechanical systems, the mechanical movements of the switch are not implemented using silicon technology but are directly realized in III-V compound semiconductors [1]. This has the important advantage of permitting the monolithic integration of active (i.e. semiconductor lasers, SOA, etc.) and passive waveguide devices (like the WDM filters, arrayed waveguide gratings) with the switching fabric. It can be envisioned that this should lead to complex wavelength cross-connect systems on a single chip. Switching time will be optimized by minimizing the mass of the moving parts and by reducing the required displacements to distances of the order of 3 microns. Dissipation of activated in one of its possible states. On the 4 output waveguides, SOA's are monolithically integrated to compensate for optical losses in the same way that we recently demonstrated a lossless 1 x 2 splitter. A passive-active resonant coupler to move the mode from a passive waveguide to a vertically positioned active waveguide using the PARC platform technology [2] can be used for the integration.