Path-Independent Insertion Loss 8 × 8 Silicon Photonics Switch With Nanosecond-Order Switching Time

Abstract

Silicon photonic switches with integrated p-i-n junctions can exhibit fast switching on the order of nanoseconds, enabling prospective optical networks with very fast reconfiguration times. However, carriers injected through the p-i-n junction cause extra loss, which can increase insertion loss, degrade uniformity and cause crosstalk. In this paper, we show that a path-independent insertion loss (PILOSS) switch with integrated p-i-n junctions can achieve uniform and very low on-chip insertion loss (3.8 ± 0.19 dB) with strictly non-blocking characteristics. The switching time of our switch is < 12.5 ns and < 6.1 ns for 10%-90% and 10%-80% rise/fall times, respectively, and the optical crosstalk can be suppressed by more than 20 dB for a bandwidth of >31 nm for the worst case.