HIGH-DENSITY DIGITAL FREE-SPACE PHOTONIC-SWITCHING FABRICS USING EXCITON ABSORPTION REFLECTION-SWITCH (EARS) ARRAYS AND MICROBEAM OPTICAL INTERCONNECTIONS

We describe a compact digital free-space photonic-switching module tha t uses microbeam optical interconnections based on stacked planar opti cs and exciton absorption reflection-switch (EARS) arrays, Microbeam o ptical interconnections become increasingly attractive as the number o f optical input and output (I/O) ports increases because of their smal l size, The EARS device provides the digital-signal regeneration neede d for constructing a multistage switching network, This paper mainly d escribes the experimental investigation of a prototype switch having a two-stage, 16-input, 16-output structure (four sets of 4 x 4 switches ), with highly dense two-dimensional fiber array pigtails acting as hi gh-density optical I/Os. The prototype is approximately 30 x 90 x 22 m m [60 cc], A relay lens array inserted between stages eliminates the b eam spreading caused by diffraction, which decreases the required posi tioning accuracy for the optomechanical packaging, Two-stage switching at a data transmission rate of 4 Mb/s has been demonstrated, Increasi ng the operating speed of the switch and introducing an easy assembly method to reduce assembly costs are future enhancements.