Problems of Acousto-Optic Tunable Filters for WDM Optical Switching

Technology development toward the use of LiNbO3-based acoustic tunable filters as WDM 2$\times$2 cross-connect switches is reviewed. Recenly, it was found that a fundamental behavior of multi-wavelength Bragg scattering critically affects the crosstalk performance of the acousto-optic tunable filter. We revuew serveral reported methods of overcoming the performance degradation. We will eventually ask whether the device is up to task of WDM optical switching.