Large-scale Silicon Photonic Switches

Silicon photonic micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) offers unique advantage for reconfigurable circuits with low optical loss and low power consumption. The MEMS-actuated vertical adiabatic couplers has nearly zero loss in the BAR state, enabling the silicon photonic switches to scale to high port count without cumulative loss. In this paper, we review the current state of the art of silicon photonic switches, and describe the principle, design, fabrication, and testing results of silicon photonic MEMS switches, including the highest port count switch (240 × 240) reported to date.