Crosstalk analysis of ring resonator switches for all-optical routing

Optical switches based on ring resonator cavities were fabricated by a silicon photonics foundry process and analyzed for optical crosstalk at various data rates and channel spacings. These devices were compared to commercial bandpass filters and at 20Gb/s, 0.5dB power penalty is observed due to spectral filtering for bit error ratio threshold of 1 x 10(-9). Concurrent modulation at 20Gb/s with a channel spacing as narrow as 40GHz shows error-free transmission with 1dB power penalty as compared to wider channel spacing for the ring-based switch. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America