Recent advances in large-scale silica-based thermo-optic switches

摘要

This paper describes recent progress on large-scale integrated thermo-optic switches including NxN switches (up to 16X16), 1XN switches (up to 1X128), N-arrayed 2X2 switches (up to 16-arrayed) for optical add/drop multiplexers, which all employ silica-on-silicon planar lightwave circuit technology. These switches exhibit low insertion loss, low polarization loss and high switch extinction ratio. I also describe a trial with the goal of reducing drive power consumption, and report the reliability of the thermo-optic switch modules.