Computing insertion loss in MEMS optical switches caused by non-flat mirrors

Author

Xiaoming Zhu ; Kahn, J.M.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., California Univ., Berkeley, CA, USA

fYear

2001

fDate

11-11 May 2001

Firstpage

185

Lastpage

186

Abstract

Summary form only given. Recent advances in the field of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) have made MEMS based micro-optical switches a promising technology. Optical switches are a very important component in WDM optical fiber communication networks as they allow reconfiguration of the network and add/drop of selected WDM channels with little interference to other channels. One of the key components in MEMS switches is a mirror that directs the incident signal beam. This mirror is a movable structure usually fabricated by surface micromachining. Mirror non-flatness is known to increase the insertion loss and crosstalk in MEMS micro-optical switches. In this paper, we propose a simple model to compute the insertion loss and crosstalk caused by non-flatness and present some representative numerical examples.

Keywords

micro-optics; micromachining; micromechanical devices; mirrors; optical crosstalk; optical losses; optical switches; wavelength division multiplexing; MEMS based micro-optical switches; MEMS optical switches; WDM optical fiber communication networks; crosstalk; insertion loss; micro-electromechanical systems; movable structure; nonflat mirrors; surface micromachining; Communication switching; Crosstalk; Insertion loss; Microelectromechanical systems; Micromechanical devices; Mirrors; Optical computing; Optical losses; Optical switches; Wavelength division multiplexing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2001. CLEO '01. Technical Digest. Summaries of papers presented at the Conference on

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-662-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CLEO.2001.947686

Filename

947686