Grant: Idea to Innovation

The goal of this project is to demonstrate that our innovative micro-sized optical switch (MSOS) technology is sufficiently tested and will work as the key building brick of single-chip wavelength selective switches (WSS). The expected results are a prototype small switch array (SSA) and narrow band tuneable filter (NBTF) test structures based on the MSOS technology. The SSA will be designed, fabricated in the form of a chip and packaged for comprehensive testing. Measurements of insertion loss, crosstalk, switching speed, and switching energy are expected to confirm our predictions based on a corpus of evidence gathered from simulations and measurements on fabricated test-structures. The corpus will be augmented by the measurements on the NBTF structures to establish the viability of a single-chip WSS product. The project is innovative because it combines novel devices in the silicon on insulator (SOI) photonic light circuit (PLC) integration platform to reduce footprint size and access the economics of volume production. This is important because customers will apply the WSS in micro-Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Module (µROADM) applications at network nodes carrying optical communication signals using DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing), which is the incumbent technique today when it comes to scale bandwidth per fibre. The major cost in optoelectronic systems is assembly and packaging particularly when 'active' alignment is essential. These costs are minimised if as proposed the system is partitioned between single-chip subsystems in a way that minimises the number of optical ports crossing the chip boundaries. The proposed research will contribute directly to providing broadband access to all, which is now essential to the economic and social well-being of developed societies. It will help position Canada as a world leader in a rapidly expanding sector of the worldwide marketplace. The total addressable markets for WSS based µROADMs are already $225M in 2009 and are slated to grow to nearly $400M in 2012. Equally important, the research will develop highly qualified and skilled personnel; promoting effective knowledge transfer and helping to fill the employment needs of the industry.