Multifunctional Polymer Mach–Zehnder Optical Switch/Filter Using Side-Coupled $M\times N$ Electrooptic Microring Array

Structure and design were proposed for a kind of novel multifunctional M × N microring array side-coupled Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) electrooptic switch/ filter. The device can be operated as a notch or bandpass filter by applying voltages on the under-reference MZI arm, and it can also serve as an optical switch by applying voltage on microrings. The dependence relations of the device's performances on RSA size (M and N) are thoroughly analyzed and concluded. As a switch, for making driving voltages under both operation states below 5 V, N and M should be within the range of 2-8. For the seven switches (M = 1, 8 ≥ N ≥ 2), their insertion losses are within 0.85-0.35 dB at bar state and within 0.14-1.70 dB at cross state; the crosstalk are within -20.79- -31.11 dB at bar state and within -13.86--20.36 dB at cross state; and their 3-dB electrical bandwidths are 18.5-30.5 GHz, whereas their 3-dB optical bandwidths for ports 1 and 2 are 18.1-40.0 GHz and 19.0-55.0 GHz, respectively. In addition, the needed energy per bit under 10-GHz switching operations is within 0.092-0.697 pJ. Therefore, the proposed multifunctional device shows potential applications, including filtering, routing, and switching, in optical networks-on-chip.