INTELLIGENT PHOTONIC SWITCH BASED ON POLARIZATION-SELECTIVE BIREFRINGENT COMPUTER-GENERATED HOLOGRAMS

We designed and implemented an intelligent reflecting 2 x 1 photonic s witch using polarization-selective birefringent computer-generated hol ograms combined with two polarization modulators. In functional terms, the reflecting switch provides a through path to the output when only one incoming link is transmitting. When both incoming links attempt t ransmission, the switch turns reflecting, thereby permitting a full ex change of the two incoming streams. The switch can also be set to dete ct backpropagating beams at its output, to split the beam evenly, and to route the two resulting beams to each of the two inputs. The snitch is useful for ultrafast fault-tolerant photonic network applications.