Large Scale Photonic Switching Using Laser Writable Polymer Waveguide Along with Reconfigurable Gratings

Photonic approaches are attractive for next generation computing and communication systems. In particular, photonic switch matrix is useful for reconfigurable optical interconnection of several high-speed computing systems for missile defense applications.Existing switching device architectures requiring N square cascaded matrix switching elements for N x N non-blocking switching limits the scalability of switch matrix. The large number of switching nodes involved makes the switch matrix suffer fromsignificant crosstalk due to imperfect analog switching. New Span Opto-Technology Inc. and University of Miami propose herein a novel photonic switch matrix using all optical control for switch pattern reconfiguration. It is based on a new laser writablepolymer waveguide and recording of instant gratings on such fast response waveguide. By minimizing the switching nodes and incorporating binary switching the novel device should minimize the switch crosstalk, improve device throughput, and offer thesimultaneous advantages of large scale matrix forming capability and fast switch pattern reconfiguration. It further minimizes switch system sensitivity to EMI due to all-optical binary switching. Phase I will demonstrate the feasibility of the proposedswitching concept. Phase II will realize a large-scale photonic switch matrix for reconfigurable optical interconnection for missile defense applications. The successful development of the photonic switch matrix with large-scale matrix forming capabilityand fast switch pattern reconfiguration can result in dual use applications. It will benefit greatly to military and MDA systems for fast computing and signal processing for targeting, missile interception, and fast access to large intelligent database.The reduced EMI sensitivity can improve the system reliability under hash environment. It will also benefit the communication industry to improve network routing speed for better video conferencing, video e-mail, and internet access.