An optical switch using replicated polymer optical wayeguide

In. this paper, we present a thermo-optic effect optical switch provided with heater electrodes to a single, mode polymer optical waveguide fabricated by revolutionary replication technology. A low-cost and high-performance optical switch is a key issue to expand the FTTH and Metro Optical Networking. The optical switch consists of a Y-branch polymer waveguide and thin metal film heaters on the surface of the waveguide. The waveguide has been prepared by photopolymerization,(2P) method, which is suitable for submicron fine pattern replication, e.g. diffractive optics, and for the large-scale production with a short processing time. Thin metal.-film heaters were formed on the waveguide using the bonding technology of MEMS. The insertion loss of legs than 2.5 dB, the switching time of less than 3 ms and the extinction ratio of more than 15dB were obtained respectively. Moreover, VOA has also been produced with the Mach Zehnder interferometer (MZI) system using the same technology as described above, and an attenuation rate of 25dB was obtained at a power consumption of 20mW.