Overview of high capacity optical cross-connects

We consider a typical Z-configuration for a 3D optical cross-connect fabric. In this design the MEMS chips are inclined and located a sufficient distance from each other, so that any one of the input port mirrors can be pointed to any one of the output port mirrors. Applying a physical layer gaussian beam propagation method to model the optical path, we study the required tolerances in assembly and packaging of the optical components by computing the excess loss associated with relative beam deviations from the center optical path.