Optical switch based on nanocrystalline VOx thin film

An optical switch is fabricated based on nanocrystalline vanadium oxide (VO
x
) thin film using micromachining technology. An “on” state with semiconducting phase to an “off” state with metallic phase is controlled by applying a DC power to Aurum electrodes of the optical switch. The optical switching performance for the fabricated device is investigated at optical communication wavelength of 1.55µm. The heater power requires to achieve switching action is about 15mW. The testing results show that the extinction ratio and switching response time are 14dB and 2ms, respectively.