Optical Switching Using Cascaded Generalised Mach-Zehnder Switches

Author

Cahill, L.W.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Eng., La Trobe Univ., Melbourne, VIC

fYear

2005

fDate

21-24 Nov. 2005

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

5

Abstract

Optical switches based on planar lightwave technology offer stable and robust means of achieving space-division switching. One form of integrated switch that shows some promise is the generalized Mach-Zehnder optical switch. This switch normally comprises two multimode interference (MMI) couplers connected by an array of phase shifters. However, such a switching structure does not possess the non-blocking characteristics required in most communication applications. In this paper it is shown that, if the architecture is extended to include additional MMI couplers, then the resultant cascaded generalised Mach-Zehnder switch can provide improved blocking characteristics.

Keywords

optical couplers; optical phase shifters; optical planar waveguides; optical switches; Mach- Zehnder switches; multimode interference couplers; optical switching; phase shifters; Communication switching; Couplers; Interference; Optical interferometry; Optical switches; Optical waveguides; Phase shifters; Phased arrays; Switching circuits; Telecommunication switching; Cascaded Mach-Zehnder devices; multimode interference couplers; optical switches; optical waveguides;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

TENCON 2005 2005 IEEE Region 10

Conference_Location

Melbourne, Qld.

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9311-2

Electronic_ISBN

0-7803-9312-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/TENCON.2005.300845

Filename

4085165