Research On Optical Switch Joint Based On Moisture Driving

The all-optical switching with optical cross-connect as core is the future direction of optical fiber communication.As a key device for optical cross-connect,optical switch has always been a hot research in the field of optical communication.The main contents are as follows:1.After investigating the current research of optical switch,this paper presents a structure of non-mechanical optical switch device based on electric drive.The device consists of a four-layer structure,from top to bottom,the upper cover plate,the waveguide plate substrate,the core driven by electrowetting and the lower cover plate.Among them,the waveguide array base of the waveguide array has a through-hole at the node,and the damp drive core is also provided with a one-to-one through-hole.Theuppercoverplate with the cavitations,the core driven by electrowetting,the lower cover plate with the elastic reservoir and the waveguide plate substrateform a double-sandwich sandwich structure,with the gas and liquid having an effect on the optical switch node and the array.Each layer structure can be producedindependently,integrated easily and finished highly.The basic working principle is to use the electrowetting effect to change the surface tension of the through-hole of core driven by electrowetting,to drive the micro-liquid column move in the through-hole,which is combined with the air pressure in bubble to form a "electrowetting piston" effect that can move reciprocally,driving index matching liquid filled or not in the through-hole of optical switch node to achieve the light "open" and "off" to complete the function of optical switch.2.A new method for measuring the effect of droplet electrowetting is proposed by using the vertical shot method instead of the traditional side-shoot method to measure the contact angle of the droplet in order to study the characteristics of the electrowetting driving on dielectric surface of “conductive substrate/insulating film coating”.The "vertical shooting-measuring diameter method" replaces the traditional "side shooting-contourextraction-function fitting derivation method",which avoids the search and function fitting of the contact point and improves the efficiency of measurement.The result shows that thepattern of electrowetting effect is consistent with the theoretical value and the new method is feasible.3.The author has carried on the simulation and the experimental research to the capillary droplets driven by electrowetting force as well as the performance of the optical switch unit.Meanwhile,the author analyzes the phenomenon of electronically controlled capillary by the theory of micro-channel liquid motion.The results show that the insertion loss of the switch is less than 0.5dB,the extinction ratio is up to 50 dB,and the reactiontime is about ms level.