Research On Novel LiNbO₃ Waveguide Optical Switch

The trend of optical network is all optical net (AON). The net connection mainly depends on the key optoelectronic components such as optical switch, filter and amplifier and so on, and its development lies on the evolution of technology of the components and DWDM mostly. Optical switch is the important element in optic exchange, and be widely applied in optical route, wavelength selection, OXC and self protect. The foreground of switch is widely. The most direction is to develop highly integrate circuit, low drive voltage and low loss waveguide switch.Current M-Z interferometer and direct coupler are better electrooptical switch on waveguide in work. They all utilize the first electrooptical effect (pockel effect) to change the index of light-wave in medium to achieve phase match of light propagation to control light-wave output from which one of both waveguide is.In this article, it explains the theory of direct coupler waveguide optical switch, and introduces the way of research on it. It puts forward a new structure of direct coupler which is to take place the parallel waveguide with bend. That change made is want to get a smaller voltage and length of electrode product, VL. It needs a long L to get a lower voltage in general that will make the measurement of switch bigger and is not good in high-speed modulation. This novel switch can be good in both.Finally, there is a simulation of optical switch by using FD-BPM. To compare these results, novel optical waveguide switch is wide band, low loss and low drive and can be used in high-speed optical communication system. It also can be used to make 4×4 optical switch and 4×4 3dB coupler with 5 components which have a satisfied result.