Self-aligned packaging of an 8×8 InGaAsP-InP space switch

By using an efficient and alignment tolerant fiber-chip coupling technology we can realize semiconductor space switches with a new and highly promising modular architecture. We present a completely packaged 8×8 matrix switch based on InGaAsP-InP intended for routing applications around wavelength 1.55 μm. The matrix is composed of sixteen 1×8 InGaAsP-InP switches that are optically interconnected by a shuffle comprising 64 single-mode fibers (SMFs). All the fiber ports of the InGaAsP-InP chips are provided with monolithically integrated optical spot-size transformers (MOSTs) that allow simple yet highly efficient self-aligned multifiber coupling. The 8×8 matrix shows a fiber-matrix-fiber insertion losses of 20 dB and a crosstalk suppressions of 28 dB. An extension of the matrix architecture to a 64×64 switch seems straightforward     

Integrated optical 2 /spl times/ 2 switch for wavelength multiplexed interconnects

A highly compact integrated optical switch is proposed and demonstrated for broadband optical switching applications. Routing of 8 /spl times/ 10 Gb/s data channels is demonstrated using a low-cost 1250-Mb/s control scheme. The advantages of lossless operation, broad optical bandwidth, and nanosecond switching times are leveraged. Multichannel wavelength is exploited for reduced latency, enhanced capacity, and functionality, while retaining compatibility with existing off-the-shelf electronics and transceiver technology. The requirements for optical header processing, wavelength translation, and optical buffering are avoided. Low-penalty multiwavelength transmission is demonstrated for a highly compact sub-mm/sup 2/ amplifying 2 /spl times/ 2 switch. Pattern dependent gain and amplified spontaneous emission are minimized to facilitate 0.0-0.4 dB penalty. Mitigation techniques compatible with the architecture are deployed to reduce the penalty under adverse operating conditions. Control schemes are proposed and demonstrated to facilitate 8 /spl times/ 10 Gb/s optically switched networking.     

Microoptical fiber switch for a large number of interconnects:optical design considerations and experimental realizations usingmicrolens arrays

The authors investigate a 1 × N free-space microoptical fiber switch for a large number of interconnects. The system to be studied is a reflective 4f optical system. Alignment tolerances and coupling efficiency are investigated and the benefit brought by collimating microlens arrays is reported (theoretically and experimentally). The use of microlenses enables power coupling efficiency between 3 and 2 dB (including losses due to the optical elements) for an optical switch allowing up to 3000 receiver fibers     

A rotary electrostatic micromotor 1×8 optical switch

This paper describes a 1×8 rotary electrostatic micromotor optical switch fabricated using high-aspect-ratio micromachining technology to produce silicon or nickel components which are subsequently assembled to form a switch. The switch consists of a salient-pole micromotor with 1-mm-diameter 200-μm-thick rotor that supports up to a 500-μm-tall, 900-μm-wide mirror. Typical switches were actuated at 50 V, operated for extended periods in room air, and found to have a rapid rotation with an average optical switching time between two neighboring fiber ports of 18 ms. Optical testing was performed at wavelength of 1310 nm in single- and multimode, and at 850 nm in multimode. The optical beam was propagated in free space with minimal divergence through the use of externally mounted collimating gradient-index lenses. With an aluminum coating, the mirror and external optics exhibited an input to output coupling loss as low as 0.96 dB in multimode and 2.32 dB in single-mode. Interchannel crosstalk was less than -45 dB     

Electromagnetic 2/spl times/2 MEMS optical switch

This paper presents the design, fabrication, and measurement results of a 2/spl times/2 microelectromechanical systems optical switch. The switch comprises an electromagnet and lensed fibers assembled with a micromachined movable vertical micromirror. The optical switch utilizes the out-of-plane motion of the vertical micromirror actuated by electromagnetic force compared to the comb-driven linear actuation achieved by the electrostatic force. At a wavelength of 1550 nm, the insertion loss of 0.2-0.8 dB and the polarization-dependent loss of 0.02-0.2 dB are measured. The switching time is 1 ms. A novel method of realizing a latchable optical switch using an electromagnetic actuator is also provided and verified. The latch mechanism is based on the latchability of the electropermanent magnet instead of the mechanical one using conventional arch-shaped leaf springs.     

Electromagnetic torsion mirrors for self-aligned fiber-opticcrossconnectors by silicon micromachining

We report a micromechanical fiber-optic switch (1 cm×1 cm×1 mm) based on an electromagnetically operated torsion mirror which is suitable for self-latching operation. The switch is fabricated by silicon micromachining technology, and self-alignment technique is employed to align optical fibers to the mirror. A small mirror of gold finished FeNiCo/polysilicon (150 μm×500 μm) is supported by two beams, and rotated around the axis in the magnetic field induced by an electromagnet. An incident light is redirected by the mirror in a free-space smaller than 1 mm³. Multimode fibers are used for optical coupling of small loss (-2.5 dB for reflection and -0.83 dB for transmission) at a wavelength 1.55 μm. Typical switching time is 10-25 ms, and switching contrast is larger than 45 dB. Magnetic torque and optical coupling are theoretically investigated     

POF-based interconnects for intracomputer applications

The technology and the optical characteristics of ×8 optical interconnects based on plastic optical fibers (POF's) are presented. The MT-compatible interconnects have been realized by using ribbonized 120-1125-μm multimode step index POF. Two-dimensional POF arrays with a pitch of 250 μm have been fabricated either by using precision drilled PMMA-hole-plates or by embedding the POF's in grooved copper plates and piling them up subsequently. The transmission loss of a 20 cm-long 8×8 interconnect including two 900 bends was 1.5 dB at 650 nm, 3.5 dB at 870 nm, and 4.5 dB at 980 nm     

A silicon MEMS optical switch attenuator and its use in lightwavesubsystems

A single-mode fiber connectorized microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) reflective optical switch attenuator operating in the 1550-nm wavelength region is described. The device consists of an electrostatically actuated gold-coated silicon vane interposed in a fiber gap yielding 0.81-dB minimum insertion loss in the transmit state and high transmission isolation in the reflection state with 2.15-dB minimum return loss. The switch attenuators also work as continuously variable optical attenuators capable of greater than 50-dB dynamic range and can be accurately regulated with a simple feedback control circuit. Switching voltages were in the range of 5-40 V and a switching time of 64 μs was achieved. The MEMS switch can be used in optical subsystems within a wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) optical network such as optical power regulators, crossconnects, and add/drop multiplexers. We used a discrete array of 16 switch attenuators to implement a reconfigurable 16-channel 100-GHz spacing WDM drop module of an add/drop multiplexer. Thru-channel extinction was greater than 40 dB and average insertion loss was 21 dB. Both drop-and-transmit of multiple channels (11-18-dB contrast, 14-19-dB insertion loss) and drop-and-detect of single channels (>20-dB adjacent channel rejection, 10-14-dB insertion loss) were demonstrated     

High-density digital free-space photonic-switching fabrics usingexciton absorption reflection-switch (EARS) arrays and microbeam opticalinterconnections

We describe a compact digital free-space photonic-switching module that uses microbeam optical interconnections based on stacked planar optics and exciton absorption reflection-switch (EARS) arrays. Microbeam optical interconnections become increasingly attractive as the number of optical input and output (I/O) ports increases because of their small size. The EARS device provides the digital-signal regeneration needed for constructing a multistage switching network. This paper mainly describes the experimental investigation of a prototype switch having a two-stage, 16-input, 16-output structure (four sets of 4×4 switches), with highly dense two-dimensional fiber array pigtails acting as high-density optical I/Os. The prototype is approximately 30×90×22 mm [60 cc]. A relay lens array inserted between stages eliminates the beam spreading caused by diffraction, which decreases the required positioning accuracy for the optomechanical packaging. Two-stage switching at a data transmission rate of 4 Mb/s has been demonstrated. Increasing the operating speed of the switch and introducing an easy assembly method to reduce assembly costs are future enhancements     

Applications of SOI-based optical MEMS

After microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices have been well established, components of higher complexity are now developed. Particularly, the combination with optical components has been very successful and have led to optical MEMS. The technology of choice for us is the silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology, which has also been successfully used by other groups. The applications presented here give an overview over what is possible with this technology. In particular, we demonstrate four completely different devices: (a) a 2 × 2 optical cross connector (OXC)with an insertion loss of about 0.4 dB at a switching time of 500 μs and its extension to a 4 × 4 OXC, (b) a variable optical attenuators (VOA), which has an attenuation range of more than 50 dB (c) a Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) with a spectral resolution of 6 nm in the visible, and (d) an accelerometer with optical readout that achieves a linear dynamic range of 40 dB over ±6 g. Except for the FTS, all the applications utilized optical fibers, which are held and self-aligned within the MEMS component by U-grooves and small leaf springs. All devices show high reliability and a very low power consumption     

Polymeric optical waveguide films for short-distance opticalinterconnects

We describe three different applications of polymeric waveguide films as short-distance optical interconnects. We fabricated the waveguide films, which were 6.5 cm long and mounted in MT-compatible (MTC) connectors by passive alignment, for MM fiber systems with a 50-μm diameter graded index (GI) core. The average insertion loss of these devices was approximately 0.6 dB at 0.85-μm wavelength. We also fabricated waveguide films with a 350 mirror and an MTC connector for use as 90° out-of-plane optical deflectors, and they exhibited an insertion loss of 1 dB. Two silica planar waveguides for single-mode (SM) fiber systems were also connected by a polymeric waveguide film. Low insertion losses were obtained in both MM and SM films designed to be employed as bending waveguides. This reveals their good potential for use as practical short-distance optical interconnects     

PLZT films prepared by aerosol deposition and their birefringence evaluation

Pb_0.91La_0.09(Zr_0.65Ti_0.35)O₃ (PLZT) films were prepared by the aerosol deposition method (ADM) and their optical and electro‐optic (EO) properties investigated for application to hologram optical switch. We found that a higher transmittance of the films was obtained with smaller particles. The transmittance of the PLZT film deposited with particles of 0.2 µm average diameter, the smallest size in this experiment, was nearly 100%, showing that the PLZT film deposited by aerosol deposition can be applied to practical optical devices. We evaluated the birefringence shift of the film to make the EO performance clear. © 2007 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

An Optical Parametric Amplified Fiber Switch for Optical Signal Processing and Regeneration

An optical parametric amplified (OPA) fiber switch is described in this paper. This device switches input signals without shifting the wavelength by changing the polarization state of the signal using optical parametric amplification. The OPA fiber switch features ultra-broadband, highly efficient switching with a high contrast ratio. We experimentally test the prototype of the OPA fiber switch, which uses a highly nonlinear fiber. Optical demultiplexing of 160 Gb/s differential phase-shift keying (DPSK) signals is demonstrated in the whole C-band and shows that it provides almost penalty-free optical detection. The application of amplitude noise suppression with the OPA fiber switch by using parametric gain saturation is then proposed and demonstrated for a 160 Gb/s DPSK signal. When it is set to an amplitude-limiting condition, the OPA fiber switch successfully increases the optical signal-to-noise ratio by 4 dB and effectively suppresses the phase deterioration in 160 Gb/s DPSK transmission by increasing the system margin by more than 5 dB.     

Optical interconnection subsystem used in the RWC-1 massivelyparallel computer

Optical interconnection between the nodes of the RWC-1 massively parallel computer has been implemented. A one-node testbed system and an eight-node parallel processing system have been produced to demonstrate large-throughput small-skew low-latency and highly reliable optical internode connection. Each node was interconnected through dc-coupled 24-bit synchronized parallel optical interconnection at 100 MHz using 50-m-long single-mode ribboned fibers. The skew in a 24-bit data signal was suppressed to within 650 to -380 ps, and the OE/EO conversion delay time was 15.2 ns. We ran a parallel-processing program on the eight-node system as an evaluation, and the 50-m-long optically interconnected system performed as well as a 10-m-long electrically interconnected system. This clearly shows that optical interconnection will overcome the communication bottleneck in multinode computer systems     

4$,times,$4 Nonblocking Polymeric Thermo-Optic Switch Matrix Using the Total Internal Reflection Effect

A polymeric 4$,times,$4 nonblocking thermo-optic switch matrix that uses the total internal reflection effect, is designed and fabricated. The switch matrix has a total device length of 39.3 mm, a fiber-to-fiber insertion loss ranging from 8.7 to 4.5 dB, and a worst case cross talk of$-23.3$dB. The device also achieves a low power consumption of 96 mW and a switch response time of 2.1 ms.     

Integrated optical, wavelength selective, acoustically tunable2×2 switches (add-drop multiplexers) in LiNbO3

Fully packaged, polarization independent, integrated acoustooptic 2×2 switches have been developed which can be also used as add/drop multiplexers. The devices have been fabricated in X-cut Y-propagating LiNbO₃ and can be operated at wavelengths around 1550 nm. They consist of passive polarization splitters and acoustooptic TE-TM converters with weighted coupling. A filter bandwidth of 2.0 nm and a tuning range of 130 nm have been obtained. The fiber-to-fiber insertion loss is <4.6 dB and a residual polarization dependence of 1.3 dB for bar-state and 0.1 dB for cross-state routing has been achieved     

Compact evanescent optical switch and attenuator withelectromechanical actuation

We report the design and the realization of an out-of-plane bending structure supporting a waveguide that is used as an optical attenuator and an optical switch. Both devices are based on evanescent field interaction induced by spatial confinement either between two waveguides or between one waveguide and an absorbing medium. The attenuator exhibits typical attenuation of 65 dB/cm. Even if the bad quality of the waveguide has prevented the correct operation of the switch, we show that the attenuation figure establishes the feasibility of a compact evanescent optical coupler with mechanical drive featuring a total length below 1 mm     

Recent advances in electrooptic polymer modulators incorporatinghighly nonlinear chromophore

Based on a nonlinear optical polymer with a highly nonlinear chromophore (CLD) dispersed in an amorphous polycarbonate (APC), we have developed electrooptic (EO) polymer modulators operating at 1550-nm wavelength with low loss and good thermal stability. By incorporating polymer insulation layer, push-pull poling was successfully performed without film damages. We also demonstrated that the propagation loss of the EO polymer waveguide could be reduced as low as 1.2 dB/cm at 1550 nm when the large core waveguide structure was incorporated. The long-term reliabilities of the EO polymer modulator made of CLD/APC polymer were investigated. When the modulator was hermetically sealed in an inert gas, the V_π change of a Mach-Zehnder modulator was negligible over 30 d of operation with 20-mW exposure to the waveguide input. In the thermal stability measurement, 25% V_π increase was observed from the sample heated to 60°C over 40 d, though the sample left at room temperature showed no decay of nonlinearity     

Electrooptic planar deflector switches with thin-film PLZT active elements

First prototypes of electrooptic (EO) planar deflector switches (PDSs) are fabricated with hybrid integration on Si substrates. Planar optical modules, made in silica-on-silicon technology, consist of input and output (I/O) waveguide microlenses facing each other and slab waveguides in between. The modules interconnect the I/O fibers with laterally collimated light beams less than 400 /spl mu/m in width at distances up to 100 mm with losses lower than 3 dB. Thin lead lanthanum zirconium titanate (PLZT) films with prism-shaped electrodes grown on SrTiO/sub 3/ substrates form the deflector elements. The PLZT films are more than 10 /spl mu/m thick with EO coefficients about 40 pm/V. The deflector assembly technology provides chip vertical positioning accuracy better than 1 /spl mu/m. The deflector chips are attached to the optical substrates with thermo-compression flip-chip bonding. The optical power losses of the modules with test silica chips can be as low as 3.6 dB. However, the lowest module losses achieved with PLZT are about 10 dB. The channel-to-channel switching operations are demonstrated at about 40 V and switching times less than 500 ns.     

High-speed optoelectronic VLSI switching chip with >4000 opticalI/O based on flip-chip bonding of MQW modulators and detectors tosilicon CMOS

We present the first high-speed optoelectronic very large scale integrated circuit (VLSI) switching chip using III-V optical modulators and detectors flip-chip bonded to silicon CMOS. The circuit, which consists of an array of 16×1 switching nodes, has 4096 optical detectors and 256 optical modulators and over 140K transistors. All but two of the 4352 multiple-quantum-well diodes generate photocurrent in response to light. Switching nodes have been tested at data rates above 400 Mb/s per channel, the delay variation across the chip is less than ±400 ps, and crosstalk from neighboring nodes is more than 45 dB below the desired signal. This circuit demonstrates the ability of this hybrid device technology to provide large numbers of high-speed optical I/O with complex electrical circuitry