ECOC 2010, 19-23 September, 2010, Torino, Italy P2.

08

Low-Crosstalk Operation of Si-Wire Cascaded-MZI Switch

Y. Shoji, K. Kintaka, S. Suda, H. Kawashima, T. Hasama, and H. Ishikawa
Network Photonics Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST),
1-1-1Umezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8568, Japan, y-shoji@aist.go.jp

Abstract We present a low-crosstalk operation of 2 × 2 thermo-optic switch with Si-wire waveguides,

based on cascade connection of Mach-Zehnder interferometers. The lowest crosstalk levels of –50 dB
and –30 dB are obtained for ‘bar’ and ‘cross’ switching states, respectively.

Introduction
Space-division optical matrix switches are key Input-1 SW1 SW3 Output-1
components in optical cross-connect systems
for high capacity and low power consumption
-x1
network1. Large-scale matrix switches SW2 SW4
composed of Mach-Zehnder interferometer
-x1
(MZI) optical switches with silica-based planar
lightwave circuits (PLCs) have been investigated Input-2 Output-2
in order to exploit their advantage of low (a)
insertion loss, long-term stability, and high
reliability2-4. Silicon photonics is an alternative Input-1 SW1 SW3 Output-1
promising platform so as to scale up the matrix
switches with high integration and low power
consumption5-7. The thermo-optic coefficient of SW2 SW4
silicon (Δn/ΔT = 1.86 × 10-4 /K) is ten times -x3
larger than that of silica. However, for silicon
waveguides, even a small dimensional error in Input-2 -x2 -x2 Output-2
the fabrication immediately causes nonzero (b)
crosstalk of the MZI. Low-crosstalk in a 2 × 2
element switch of matrix switches is necessary In-A 3-dB DC Out-A In-A Out-A
as the number of channels increases. A Heater
cascade connection of MZIs has been achieved 0-dB DC

a good crosstalk performance with silica-based In-B Out-B

2 In-B
PLCs . In this contribution, we present the low-
crosstalk operation in the 2 × 2 optical switch
using Si-wire waveguides based on the cascade
connection of MZIs, which is the first report for
improving the crosstalk characteristics of 2 × 2
switch in Si photonics.
Device structure
Figure 1(a) and 1(b) shows the schematic
configuration of considered 2 × 2 optical switch
and its low-crosstalk operation for the ‘bar’ and
‘cross’ switching states, respectively. Figure 1(c)
and 1(d) shows the element switch of an MZI
with thermo-optic phase shifter and the
intersection of a vertically aligned directional
coupler (DC). This switch connection can be
regarded as a generalization of that
implemented in Ref. 2. In the present study, we
assume that the top and bottom ports are for the
input/output ports as defined in Fig. 1(a) and
1(b). Note that the optical signals from the two
input ports never pass a common element
switch. The 2 × 2 switch gives a bar or cross
connection when the element switches are all
Out-B
(c) (d)
Fig. 1: Schematic configuration of 2 × 2 optical
switch using cascade connection as (a) ‘bar’ and
(b) ‘cross’ states. (c) Element switch of MZI with
thermo-optic phase shifter. (d) Intersection of
vertically aligned directional coupler (DC).
set to the ‘bar’ state or ‘cross’ state.
Let the leakage level in an element switch be
–x1 dB and –x2 dB below the level on the main
path for the ‘bar’ state or ‘cross’ state,
respectively, as shown in Fig. 1(a) and 1(b). For
each state, the leaked component in the first
switch is further attenuated in the second switch,
and it should reach the output with a level of –
2x1 dB or –2x2 dB. It should be noted that the
crosstalk characteristics of the intersection is
also important, particularly for the cross
connection, as will be discussed later. Generally,
it is difficult to realize the low-crosstalk
performance of an intersection with Si-wire
waveguides owing to the strong diffraction8-11. In
this study, we employ a vertically aligned 0-dB

978-1-4244-8535-2/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE


Fig. 2: (a) Microscope image of fabricated 2 × 2
thermo-optical switch. (b) Schematic image of
cross section of Si waveguide with metal heater
DC. Directional coupling, at first approximation,
should deliver no power to the bar port (Out-A if
signal is input to In-A). This should hold even
though the power splitting ratio is off 0 dB.
Figure 2(a) shows the microscope image of
the fabricated 2 × 2 thermo-optical switch. We
used a Unibond silicon-on-insulator wafer with a
220-nm-thick Si layer on a 3.0-μm-thick oxide
layer. 450-nm-wide Si-wire waveguides were
fabricated by electron-beam lithography and
reactive ion etching. Then, a 2.5-μm-thick SiO2
layer and 40-μm-long thin-metal heaters with Pt
were formed, as shown in Fig. 2(b). The
footprint of the MZI is 200 × 200 μm2, which is
much more compact than that with silica-based
PLCs.
Characterization
We used a tunable laser diode operating at the
wavelength range of 1520–1630 nm as a light
source to measure the transmittance of the
fabricated device. The light is polarized at
transverse electric (TE)-like mode and is
coupled to the device with a focusing lens
module. A propagation loss of 8 dB/cm and a
coupling loss of 4.5 dB/facet between the fiber
and waveguide were measured for the single
waveguide. On the same sample, we also laid
stand-alone element switch of a single MZI and
intersection pattern for evaluation.
Figure 3(a) shows measured results of the
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Fig. 3: Measured transmittances of (a) element
switch of single MZI, (b) intersection, and (c) 2 × 2
optical switch with cascade connection. The color
of lines corresponds to the signal path in Fig. 1.
element switch. The power consumption and
response time of the element switch were 40
mW and 30 μs, respectively. The insertion loss
was 16 dB. The excess loss of the element
switch itself was estimated to be 4 dB. Figure
3(b) shows the measured results of the
intersection from In-A to Out-A and Out-B.
Figure 3(c) shows the measured results of the 2
× 2 optical switch from Input-1 and Input-2 to
Output-1 and Output-2 for each state.
Figure 4 shows the crosstalk levels
calculated from the measured results with
smooth polynomial curves. We define the
crosstalk level as the difference between the
transmitted power level of the main input signal
and the leakage level of the other input signal.
For the single MZI, the lowest crosstalk levels
were –25 dB and –20 dB for the ‘bar’ and ‘cross’
state, respectively. What places a limitation on

Fig. 4: Crosstalk performance calculated from the
measured results for (a) ‘bar’ state, (b) ‘cross’
state , and intersection. The smooth lines show
polynomial curves that fit the data.
crosstalk of a single MZI is deviation of the
power splitting ratio of the two 3-dB couplers
from 3 dB. This deviation can occur due to the
dimensional error in the fabrication. An error of
10 nm in the waveguide width causes the
splitting ratio shift 3 to 4 % for Si-wire
waveguides. Then, the crosstalk of the MZI can
be no better than –25 dB. The lowest crosstalk
level of the intersection was –35 dB presumably
resulting from the back-scatterings due to the
12
sidewall roughness in the waveguide . The
lowest crosstalk levels of the 2 × 2 optical switch
were –50 dB and –30 dB for the ‘bar’ and ‘cross’
states, respectively. For the ‘bar’ state, the
figure of –50 dB is two times that for a single
MZI (–25 dB). This improvement agrees well
with the crosstalk levels expected from the
present design. On the other hand, for the
‘cross’ state, the figure of –30 dB falls short of
two times that for a single MZI (–20 dB). This
degradation is due to the intersection. If some
leakage occurs at the intersection (–x3 dB), it is
transmitted through the signal path, as shown in
Fig. 1(b), and cannot be eliminated in SW4. This
results indicated that the leakage from the
intersection limits the crosstalk for the ‘cross’
state. Therefore, in Fig. 4(b), the crosstalk level
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of the switch with the cascade connection is
never lower than that of the intersection in the
whole wavelength range.
Finally, we emphasize that the crosstalk
characteristics were certainly improved by using
the cascade connection. The importance of the
intersection was also validated in this
configuration. In our vertical DC as the
intersection, the crosstalk is sensitive to the
backscattering noise due to sidewall roughness.
However, we suspect that the vertical DC should
have lower crosstalk level if it is fabricated with
the state-of-the art technology with less
backscattering.
Conclusions
We demonstrated a low-crosstalk operation of 2
× 2 thermo-optic switch with Si-wire waveguides.
The cascade connection utilizing a vertically
aligned DC successfully improves the crosstalk
characteristics from that of a single MZI. The
lowest crosstalk levels of –50 dB and –30 dB
were obtained for the ‘bar’ and ‘cross’ states,
respectively. The power consumption of one
MZI element switch was 40 mW, and the total
power consumption of the device was at most
160 mW; this is still much lower than that of
single- MZI switch with silica-based PLCs.
This work was supported in part by Special
Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and
Technology from the Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sport, Science and Technology, Japan.
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