Recently photonic networks based on wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems have been constructed to respond to explosive growth of the internet. Since optical switches are one of the key components in the photonic networks, thermo-optic switches (TOSW) composed of a Mazh-Zehnder interferometer have been developed in planar lightwave circuits (PLCs) which enable us, to make various high-density optical devices. This paper reports the structure and characteristics of PLC-type optical switches such as an 8-array 2 × 2 TOSW, a 1 × 8 TOSW and a 16 × 16 non-blocking matrix switch. Moreover, we describe reliability test results of the 8-array 2 × 2 TOSW which were conducted based on Telcodia standards.
展开▼
