An Optically Controlled Coplanar Waveguide Millimeter-Wave Switch

This letter demonstrates an optically controlled coplanar waveguide switch operating in the millimeter-wave region. Full-wave electromagnetic analysis used a multilayer model to simulate the photoinduced plasmas and a good agreement between measured and simulated results has been achieved. The insertion loss is less than 4 dB and isolation is greater than 15 dB from 32-50 GHz. This approach requires the use of 175 mW of optical power at a wavelength 980 nm, but it removes the need for bandwidth limiting electrical bias networks.