SSFLC OPTICAL DIRECTIONAL COUPLER SWITCH WITH A SHORT DEVICE LENGTH -A PROPOSAL

A novel vertical directional coupler waveguide switch composed of ferr oelectric liquid crystal (FLC) is proposed and analyzed, The surface s tabilized ferroelectric liquid crystalbreak (SSFLC) is used as an acti ve separation layer between passive waveguides, To decrease the snitch ing length, the waveguide snitch is based on the power crossing the se paration layer rather than coupling between waveguides, The calculated results relevant to the snitch parameters such as the snitching lengt h, snitching time, capacitance, and extinction ratio are presented. Be cause of the large birefringence of FLC, a very short switching length , less than 60 mu m, is possible.