Vol. 41, Issue 1, pp. 165-172 (2011)

Abstract

We propose an eight-channel all-optical switch using a multimode interference phenomenon. This structure is based on the cooperation of self imaging and self guiding in nonlinear multimode interference. The switching operation is done with changing the intensity of the input signal. To the best of our knowledge, this is for the first time that a 1×8 all-optical switch is presented based on a continuous multimode interference region. Simulation results show low crosstalk and high efficiency in the output profiles. The mean values of the crosstalk and the insertion losses in eight states of the switching operation are –33.8 dB and –0.16 dB, respectively. Full-vectorial beam propagation method is used for the simulation of the device.