Use of reconfigurable IM regions to suppress propagation and polarization dependent losses in a MMI switch

Abstract

With this work, use of reconfigurable index modulated (IM) regions to accelerate theperformance of a multimode interference (MMI) based photonic switch is presented.Appropriate dimension for such regions are defined to suppress the transition lossesand to optimize the area coverage. It has been noticed that by reconfiguring the IMregions, perfect switching for test wavelengths of 1.3μ m and 1.55μ m with low insertionloss (I.L.) levels, = 1.2dB and excess loss (E.L.) levels, = 0.17dB can be achievedwith vacillation of extremely low polarization dependent losses (PDLs), which are =0.15dB. For either case of input test wavelengths, generated crosstalk (CT) levels arefound better than -21.8dB for TE and -20.2dB for TM polarization state.