基于双面反射镜的N×N光开关的特性分析和实验研究

报道了基于双面反射镜的N×N光开关器件。介绍了使用双面反射镜的2×2,4×4光开关的集成光路设计和工作原理;采用Benes网络,以2×2和4×4光开关为基本单元的N×N光开关器件的整体结构,并根据“一笔画”原理,分析了4×4,8×8和16×16光开关矩阵的可重排无阻塞特性和光开关矩阵的光路选择算法。最后,基于2×2,4×4光开关技术制备了16×16光开关矩阵。测试表明,该器件具有良好的插入损耗、回波损耗、串扰和开关时间等性能,从而验证了设计思想和工艺的可行性。在基于双面反射镜的光开关矩阵中,双面反射镜的使用大大减少了光开关矩阵中运动镜片的数量,简化了控制程序,并有利于提升光开关器件的可靠性能,有望在中小型光交换机、网络管理和光路测量中获得应用。

Analyses and Experimental Study of a N × N Optical Switch Using Two-Facet Reflective Mirrors

An N×N optical switch device based on two-facet reflective mirrors is reported in the paper. Operation principle of the 2×2 and 4×4 optical switches based on the two-facet reflective mirrors and micro electromagnetism actuator is introduced; N×N optical switch matrixes consisting of the 2×2 and 4×4 optical switches are designed based on Benes networking; the rearrangeable non-blocking feature of 4×4, 8×8 and 16×16 optical switch matrixes and their routing algorithm are analyzed by using the principle invented by Euler in Knigsberg Bridge Problem. The fabrication and technologies of 2×2 and 4×4 optical switches are then described. A 16×16 switch matrix was fabricated; the device was measured with good performances on insertion loss, return loss, cross-talk, on-off speed, and so on, demonstrating the feasibility of the design and technology experimentally. The application of the two-facet mirror makes it possible to use much less moveable mirrors than the cross-bar configuration, and simplifies the control program with improved reliability of the optical switch matrix. The method may hopefully find applications in middle-scale exchange machine, network management and optical measurement.