Experimental photonic switches tested by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A., show promise toward the goal of fully optical, high-capacity switching for future high-speed data transmission networks. The switch developed and tested for this research demonstrated capabilities not seen before in photonic switches.
In a paper to be presented at OFC: The Optical Fiber Communications Conference and Exhibition, to be held 3-7 March in San Diego, Calif., U.S.A., researchers Tae Joon Seok and colleagues will report successful scale up of a 240×240 integrated silicon photonic switch. The device is so-named because it accepts 240 optical communication input channels and sends them into 240 output channels.
Using experimental photonic switches manufactured at the Marvell Nanofabrication Laboratory at UC Berkeley, the research team demonstrated signal loss lower than any previously reported, said Seok, who is assistant professor at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley.