Polymer-assisted silica-based thermo-optic switch

摘要

We propose a novel thermo-optic switch with low power consumption. The switch consists of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, grooves filled with silicone resin formed across each Mach-Zehnder interferometer waveguide arms, and a thin film heater located between the waveguide arms. The large thermo-optic effect in the silicone resin enables switching operations with low power consumption. We fabricated this device and successfully obtained a switching power of 43mW.