Proposed WDM cross connect using a planar arrangement of waveguide grating routers and phase shifters

We propose a reconfigurable wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) cross connect consisting of two "interleave-chirped" waveguide grating routers connected by waveguides with phase shifters. For the 2 line/spl times/2 line case, any wavelength channel in one line can be exchanged with the same wavelength channel in the other line. For the P line/spl times/P line case, the channels can be switched in a cyclical fashion between lines. The device is compact with no waveguide crossings; is predicted to have relatively low and even losses for all channels; can theoretically achieve very high, fabrication-tolerant, switching extinction ratios; and can theoretically achieve a nearly excess-loss-free rectangular spectral response.