FREE-SPACE MICROMACHINED OPTICAL SWITCHES WITH SUBMILLISECOND SWITCHING TIME FOR LARGE-SCALE OPTICAL CROSSCONNECTS

Optical crossconnects with large port counts are fast becoming critica l components for high-capacity optical transport networks, The free-sp ace micromachined optical snitches (FS-MOS) demonstrated in this lette r represent a means of filling this network need by combining the adva ntages of free-space interconnection with the virtues of integrated op tics. Featuring free-rotating hinged micromirrors, the switch overcome s the common drawback of mechanical-type snitches, namely long switchi ng time. Measurements have revealed switching times less than 700 mu s , crosstalk less than -60 dB, extinction ratio greater than 60 dB, neg ligible polarization-dependent loss, and excellent bit-error-rate (BER ) performance.