Reconfigurable optical switch based on thermally controlled EIT-like effect

We propose a new reconfigurable optical switch based on thermally controlled EIT-like effect in embedded ring resonators (ERR). By controlling the power splitting ratio of dual directional couplers through a transverse temperature gradient, a narrow band intensity modulated optical switch can be achieved. Results show the ERR-based thermally controlled resonant structure has an on-state transmission of 0.7 with a 3 dB bandwidth of 14.2 GHz and a large on/off ratio of 25.2 dB. A fast switching performance with comparable on/off ratio is also attainable at under-coupling operation.