• ETRI Journal
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.275-278
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• 2011

This letter presents a polymer $1{\times}2$ thermo-optic totalinternal-reflection digital optical switch (TIR-DOS) with an index contrast of 1.5%-${\delta}$ operating at low power consumption. The structure of our $1{\times}2$ TIR-DOS was created by adding a reflection port to that of a conventional multimode filtering variable optical attenuator. To improve the total-internalr-eflection efficiency, a heater offset was applied to the crossing region of multimode waveguides of the TIR-DOS. The fabricated $1{\times}2$ TIR-DOS shows a low electrical power consumption of 18 mW for an on-off ratio of 35 dB.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.744-746
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• 2008

This letter presents a crosstalk-enhanced polymer thermo-optic digital optical switch operating at a low power consumption. Modified radiation-type attenuators are integrated in a series with a conventional $1{\times}2$ digital optical switch. A low optical crosstalk of less than -45 dB is attained at a low applied switching power of 60 mW, and an insertion loss of about 1.1 dB is exhibited.

• Proceedings of the Optical Society of Korea Conference
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• 2005.02a
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• pp.292-295
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• 2005

Variable optical attenuators (VOA) made of low-loss fluorinated polymers are demonstrated which shows a low operating power less than 30 mW due to the superior thermo-optic effect of polymer material and a low insertion loss less than 1.0 dB by incorporating highly fluorinated polymers to reduce the absorption loss at 1550 nm. An attenuator-integrated low-crosstalk polymeric digital optical switch (DOS) is also demonstrated. The switch and attenuator shares a single connected electrode which is controlled by a single current source. Due to the simple structure of the integrated attenuator, the device length is reduced to 1 cm so as to provide low insertion loss of 0.8 and 1.1 dB for 1300 and 1550 nm, respectively. The attenuator radiates remained optical signal on the switch-off branch in order to decrease the switching crosstalk to be less than -70 dB with an applied electrical power of 200 mW.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.770-777
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• 2009

We have developed a fully functional reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) switch module using a polymer integrated photonic lightwave circuit technology. The polymer variable optical attenuator (VOA) array and digital optical switch array are integrated into one polymer PLC chip and packaged to form a 10-channel VOA integrated optical switch module. Four of these optical switch modules are used in the ROADM switch module to execute 40-channel switching and power equalization. As a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM) filter device, two C-band 40-channel athermal arrayed waveguide grating WDMs are used in the ROADM module. Optical power monitoring of each channel is carried out using a 5% tap PD. A controller and firmware having the functions of a 40-channel switch and VOA control, optical power monitoring, as well as TEC temperature control, and data communication interfaces are also developed in this study.