A polymer/silica hybrid 2×2 multimode-interference switch is designed and fabricated. Instead of polymer Mach-Zehnder interferometer thermo-optic （TO） silica is used as under-cladding to accelerate heat release because of its large thermal conductivity. The developed switch exhibits low power consumption of 6.2 mW, low crosstalk of about 28 dB, and short response time. The rise and fall times of 103 and 91 its for this hybrid switch are shortened by 40.8% and 52.4%, respectively, compared with those of the fabricated TO switch （174 and 191 μs） using polymer as both upper- and under-claddings.
A novel 1×2 polymer electro-optic(EO)switch based on seven vertical-turning serial-coupled microrings is proposed for dropping crosstalk and obtaining flat boxlike spectrum.The device structure,theory and formulation are presented,and the microring resonance order and coupling gaps are optimized.The switching voltage of the device for obtaining crosstalk lower than 30 dB under through state is decided to be about 1.86 V.Under the operation voltages of 0 V(drop state)and 1.86 V(through state),the switching performance is characterized,and the output spectrum is analyzed.The calculation results show that the crosstalk at through state and that at drop state are 30.2 dB and 53.2 dB,respectively,while the insertion losses are 0.86 dB and 3.18 dB,respectively.Owning to the seven serial-coupled microrings resonance structure,the proposed switch reveals the favorable boxlike spectrum compared with the simple device with only one microring,and thus the crosstalk under drop state is improved from 26.8 dB to 53.2 dB.Due to the low crosstalk,this device can be used in optical networks-on-chip for signal switching and routing.
Structure and design are proposed for a kind of novel polymer Mach-Zehnder electro-optic(EO)switch using side-coupled M series-cascaded EO microrings.Formulations are proposed to analyze its switching characteristics.The dependences of the device’s performances on M are thoroughly analyzed and concluded.As the increase of M from 2 to 10,the switching voltages for the 9 devices are as low as 0.84 V,0.82 V,0.52 V,0.5 V,0.37 V,0.36 V,0.29 V,0.28 V and 0.24 V,respectively;whereas the crosstalks under bar state are within-20.79--6.53 d B and those under cross state are within-20.36--5.29 d B.The analysis results indicate that a smaller M is preferred for dropping the insertion loss and crosstalk,and a larger M should be selected to increase the optical bandwidth and minimize the switching energy.Generally,due to low switching voltage,the proposed device shows potential applications in optical networks-on-chip.
The analysis on the traditional asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer (AMZI) optical filter based on two 3 dB directional couplers (DCs) shows that by adding an additional nonlinear phase generated by phase-generating coupler (PGC) to the original phase difference of the AMZI, its non-periodic frequency response can be modified, and a strictly periodic spectrum can be obtained. A novel structure of the AMZI filter using two PGCs before and after the AMZI region is proposed. With the needed free spectrum range (FSR) of 20 nm, the design and optimization of the device are performed using polymer SU-8 as the core and PMMA-GMA as the buffer. Though the insertion loss (IL) gets larger than that of the traditional AMZI filter, the FSR is nearly uniform as the expected period of 20 nm.
A nanosecond response waveguide electro-optic （EO） switch based on ultraviolet （UV） sensitive polymers of Norland optical adhesive （NOA73） and Dispersed Red 1 （DR1） doped SU-8 （DR1/SU-8） is designed and fabricated. The absorption properties, refractive indexes, and surface morphologies of NOA73 film are characterized. The single-mode transmission condition is computed by the effective index method, and the percentage of optical field distributed in EO layer is optimized to be 93.78 %. By means of spin-coating, thermal evaporation, photolithography, and inductively coupled plasma etching, a Mach-Zehnder inverted-rib waveguide EO switch with micro-strip line electrode is fabricated on a silicon substrate. Scanning electron microscope characterization proves the physic-chemical compatibility between NOA73 cladding and DR1/SU-8 core material. The optical transmission loss of the fabricated switch is measured to be 2.5 dB/cm. The rise time and fall time of switching are 3.199 ns and 2.559 ns, respectively. These results indicate that the inverted-rib wave- guide based on UV-curable polymers can effectively reduce the optical transmission loss and improve the time response performance of an EO switch.
