Very Low-Power, Polarization-Independent, and High-Speed Polymer Thermooptic Switch

This letter demonstrates the design and experimental verification of a very low-power consuming, polarization-independent, and high-speed polymer Mach-Zehnder 2 × 2 photonic switch. This thermooptic switch operated with less than 4 mW of power consumption via a small-area heater. This device is, to the author's best knowledge, the most efficient and practical polymer photonic switch operating with polarization independence and low crosstalk of less than -25 dB.

I. Introduction

In optical communication systems today, one of the biggest challenges is the ability to reduce power consumption as the number of communication channels increases. This letter reports a cost-effective and efficient thermooptic (TO) photonic switch based on polymer materials to demonstrate very low-power consumption. In addition, this device shows a similar if not better switching characteristic compared to other material platforms utilizing the same Mach–Zehnder interferometer (MZI) design.