A Universal Method for Constructing N-Port Reconfigurable Non-Blocking Optical Switches on a Silicon Chip

We propose a novel method for building
${N}$
-port nonblocking optical switches on a silicon chip. The rationale behind this is a bidirectional merge-replace-mirror method. It offers nonblocking interconnections among multiple inputs and outputs. The critical merits include
$170~\mu \text{m}\,\,\times 300~\mu \text{m}$
footprint, nano-second circuit-switching, and
$85.1~\mu \text{W}$
power consumption per link. The worst-case on-chip insertion loss for the 32-port optical switch is 18.02dB (all cross) and crosstalk is −16.96dB (all bars), respectively.