This paper presents results on optical cross-connect switches based on novel MEMS vertical mirrors. The switch consists of two mirror arrays to redirect optical beams from an input fiber array to an output fiber array. Each mirror is actuated by two electrostatic comb drive actuators, and can be rotated bi-directionally and perpendicularly to the chip surface. Finite element model (FEM) and Gaussian beam optics have been used to simulate and optimize the optical cross-connect switch architecture. Results have shown that the switch is much less constrained by the scaling distance of light propagation as the port count grows. However, the coupling efficiency is sensitive to angular alignment for large port-counts; thus mechanism for ensuring precise angular control of the micro-mirror is crucial for the proposed MEMS optical cross-connect switches.

Date Published: 19 April 2002
PDF: 5 pages
Proc. SPIE 4755, Design, Test, Integration, and Packaging of MEMS/MOEMS 2002, (19 April 2002); doi: 10.1117/12.462887

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4755:
Design, Test, Integration, and Packaging of MEMS/MOEMS 2002
Bernard Courtois; Jean Michel Karam; Karen W. Markus; Bernd Michel; Tamal Mukherjee; James A. Walker, Editor(s)