Photonics Research, 2018, 6 (5): 05000380, Published Online: Jul. 6, 2018
On-chip cyclic-AWG-based 12 × 12 silicon wavelength routing switches with minimized port-to-port insertion loss fluctuation
Abstract
With the rapidly increasing bandwidth requirements of optical communication networks, compact and low-cost large-scale optical switches become necessary. Silicon photonics is a promising technology due to its small footprint, cost competitiveness, and high bandwidth density. In this paper, we demonstrate a 12 × 12 silicon wavelength routing switch employing cascaded arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) connected by a silicon waveguide interconnection network on a single chip. We optimize the connecting strategy of the crossing structure to reduce the switch’s footprint. We develop an algorithm based on minimum standard deviation to minimize the port-to-port insertion loss (IL) fluctuation of the switch globally. The simulated port-to-port IL fluctuation decreases by about 3 dB compared with that of the conventional one. The average measured port-to-port IL is 13.03 dB, with a standard deviation of 0.78 dB and a fluctuation of 2.39 dB. The device can be used for wide applications in core networks and data centers.
Zepeng Pan, Songnian Fu, Luluzi Lu, Dongyu Li, Weijie Chang, Deming Liu, Minming Zhang. On-chip cyclic-AWG-based 12 × 12 silicon wavelength routing switches with minimized port-to-port insertion loss fluctuation[J]. Photonics Research, 2018, 6(5): 05000380.