Fully-reconfigurable wavelength-selective optical 1 /spl times/ N switch based on transversal filter configuration

A novel wavelength-selective switch is proposed and demonstrated. The switch has a 1 /spl times/ 4 transversal filter configuration that includes AWGs and thermo-optic phase shifters, and can route input light at an arbitrary wavelength to arbitrary outputs with no loss variation. We confirmed its operating principle and obtained an average loss of 5.7 dB and an average extinction ratio of 27 dB.