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Ultra-high extinction ratio and low power silicon thermo-optic switch
Optics Letters- received 01/31/2024; accepted 04/10/2024; posted 04/12/2024; Doc. ID 520209
- Abstract: The silicon thermo-optic switch (TOS) is one of the most fundamental and crucial blocks in large-scale silicon photonics integrated circuits (PICs). An energy-efficient silicon TOS with ultra-high extinction ratio can effectively mitigate crosstalk and reduce power consumption in optical systems. In this letter, we demonstrate a silicon TOS based on cascading Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) with spiral thermo-optic phase shifters. The experimental results show that an ultra-high extinction ratio of 58.8 dB is obtained, and the switching power consumption is as low as 2.32 mW/ without silicon air trench. The rise time and fall time of the silicon TOS are about 10.8 s and 11.2 s, respectively. Particularly, the figure of merit (FOM) has been improved compared with previously reported silicon TOS. The proposed silicon TOS may find potential applications in optical switch arrays, on-chip optical delay lines, etc.