InGaAsP/InP suppressed modal interference switches with integrated curved amplifiers for scaleable photonic crossconnects

Summary form only given. Photonic space switches will be very attractive elements for future communication networks. While simulations and theory have predicted limitations on the size of an N /spl times/ N semiconductor switch to be near 50-100 channels, practical concerns, such as, optical loss and physical size have limited monolithic InP crossconnects to arrays no larger than 4 /spl times/ 4. To address these issues, we report a novel compact optical switch that combines zero insertion loss and high contrast with a scaleable, compact architecture to act as a building block for large N /spl times/ N photonic crossconnects.