Ultracompact and low-power-consumption silicon thermo-optic switch for high-speed data

Ultracompact and low-power-consumption optical switches are desired for high-performance telecommunication networks and data centers. Here, we demonstrate an on-chip power-efficient 2 x 2 thermo-optic switch unit by using a suspended photonic crystal nanobeam structure. A submilliwatt switching power of 0.15 mW is obtained with a tuning efficiency of 7.71 nm/mW in a compact footprint of 60 mu m x 16 mu m. The bandwidth of the switch is properly designed for a four-level pulse amplitude modulation signal with a 124 Gb/s raw data rate. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed switch is the most power-efficient resonator-based thermo-optic switch unit with the highest tuning efficiency and data ever reported.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates an on-chip power-efficient 2x2 thermo-optic switch unit using a suspended photonic crystal nanobeam structure, achieving low power consumption and high tuning efficiency for optical switching. It is suitable for high-speed data transmission and is the most power-efficient resonator-based thermo-optic switch unit reported to date.