Research On MEMS Tunable Laser And Optical Switch

As MEMS (Microelectronic Mechanical System) becomes a mature technology, its strengths of optical transparency, small structure, easy integrating and simple manufacturing make itself a large potential in optical communications. In this thesis, two of the most important optical devices, tunable Laser and optical switch, are analyzed and improved based on MEMS, to satisfy the requirement of WDM system.By revising the principle of tunable Laser, the factors that prevent Laser from continuously tuning are summarized according to the results of the latest researches. 0.8nm mode-hopping tunable Laser is analyzed, and parameters are determined to apply the Laser in WDM system. A new design of mirror is calculated, which can provide tuning range of C band, 1525nm to 1565nm, and can also be developed to S and L bands. Translation takes the place of rotation to realize tuning, with a displacement-wavelength resolution of 0.7μm/nm, enhancing the tuning stability. After studying the latest study on switch architectures, new architectures of 4×4 switch are designed with only 5 switch units, to balance the insertion loss of different channels. The performance of the new architectures is simulated, and well balanced insertion loss of less than 1.8dB and switching time of about 43μs are obtained, which is much more advanced than that of other architectures. The expandability of the switch is analyzed, and two architectures of 8×8 switch are achieved.