A SILICON-BASED MOVING-MIRROR OPTICAL SWITCH

A multimode 2 x 2 optical switch made from chemically micro-machined silicon piece parts is described. This switch uses microlenses, aligned to fibers by a silicon base, to expand the optical beam and relax alignment tolerances and a pivoting silicon mirror as the switching mechanism. The moving mirror switch meets or exceeds all the requirements for FDDI applications. The switch loss is typically 0.7 dB and operates at 5V and 30 mA. The switch insertion/deinsertion time is less than 10 ms, and the optical interruption time is less than 1 ms. The switch design, which minimizes alignments in fabrication and provides for z axis assembly, coupled with the low cost of the high precision piece parts contribute to making this a low-cost switch to manufacture.