Reduced-power consuming silica-based compact 1 x 2 MZI thermo-optic switch using MMI couplers

A novel structure silica-based 1 x 2 thermo-optic (TO) switch using multimode interference (MMI) couplers and a super high delta (SHDelta) planar lightwave circuit (PLC) was fabricated and operated with low power consumption and a low-polarization-dependency configuration, An important feature of the proposed switch is that two different types of MMI couplers are cascaded. As a result of the feature, only pi/2 phase shifting is needed for a 100:0 output splitting ratio. We obtained a power consumption of 119 mW and reduced polarization dependency by about 50 %. A high speed response time is also obtained: 213 mus and 222 mus rise and fall time, respectively. The size of the device was 45 mum x 4.55 mm.