硅基光开关及阵列研究进展

随着网络传输数据的爆炸式增长,传统集成电路芯片面临着难以进一步提升交换速率及继续扩大容量等挑战。相较于传统电子芯片,硅基光子器件具有交换速度快、功耗低、带宽大和与CMOS工艺兼容性好等优点,可满足下一代全光交换网络、数据中心和高性能计算光互连的迫切需求,被视为在后摩尔时代突破芯片容量最具前途的解决方案,受到日益广泛关注。文章介绍了硅基光子芯片中光开关单元及阵列的技术原理和发展现状,重点论述了MZI型、MRR型开关单元,以及常见阵列拓扑结构,介绍了近年来大规模光开关阵列的国内外研究进展,讨论了未来硅基光开关及阵列研究中面临的主要问题和解决方法。

Review on Silicon-based Optical Switch and Switch Array

With the explosive growth of network transmission data, traditional integrated circuit is facing difficulties of further increasing exchange rate and expanding chip capacity. Compared with traditional electronic chips, silicon photonic devices present the advantages of high speed, low power consumption, larger bandwidth, lower cost, good compatibility with CMOS process, thus they show great potentials to meet the requirements of next-generation all-optical switching networks, the optical interconnection for data centers and the high-performance computing. Therefore, silicon photonics is widely recognized as one of the most promising solutions to break through the bottleneck of capacity in the post-Moore era. In this work, technical principles of silicon-based optical switch and switch arrays are introduced, especially MZI and MRR switch units and the construction strategy of switch array. Progresses and proposal of promising solutions to the challenges of silicon optical switches are reviewed.