All-optical compact silicon comb switch

We demonstrate a 1x2 all-optical comb switch using a 200 mu m diameter silicon ring resonator with a switching time of less than 1 ns. The switch overcomes the small bandwidth of the traditional ring resonator, and works for wavelength division multiplexing applications. The device has a footprint of similar to 0.04 mm(2) and enables switching of a large number (similar to 40) of wavelength channels spaced by similar to 0.85 nm. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.