An optical switching and routing system using frequency tunable cleaved-coupled-cavity semiconductor lasers

Abstract

A 1 × 4 optical switch based on a frequency tunable cleaved coupled cavity (C <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> ) laser and a grating demultiplexer is demonstrated. The switch, which can easily be expanded to a general <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N \times N</tex> switch With <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</tex> as high as 13 has a 2 ns access time with negligible crosstalk between the channels.