We report an infrared (IR) optical switch using a wedge-like cell. A glycerol droplet is placed in the cell and its surrounding is filled with silicone oil. The droplet has minimal surface area to volume (SA/V) ratio in the relaxing state. By applying a voltage, the generated dielectric force pulls the droplet to move toward the region with thinner cell gap. As a result, the droplet is deformed...

A large scale optical switch array based on guided-wave technology using banyan network architecture is demonstrated. Banyan network architecture is the simplest N×N network connecting a input port to all the output ports. A banyan network optical switch array serves as a base for constructing many classes of switch networks, as we propose in this report. We fabricated a 32×32 switch and measur...

We investigate an all-optical switch that is operated by the nonlinear phase-shift introduced by optical pulses with duration of 200 fs in a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOAs). The gate is made out of a commercially available InGaAsP–InGaAs multi-quantum-well (MQW) SOA placed in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. We have measured the nonlinear phase-shift as a function of the injection current ...

We demonstrate a novel all-optical switch based on frequency upconversion. The switch features advantages for telecommunications: it is fast, transparent, frequency-multiplexable and bias-free.