Preventing hydrodynamic crosstalk in an optical switch

摘要

Optical switches that create bubbles in a liquid to change the state of switching sites use guard bubbles to prevent liquid that is rapidly displaced when creating a bubble in one switching site from disturbing another switching site. Liquid in the optical switch can be at a fluid pressure and temperature such that the guard bubbles, which are relatively large, are stable without local heating, and such that bubbles in the switching site can be turned on and off through activation and deactivation of heating elements for the switching sites. A power-up process for the optical switch can create the guard bubbles using either heating elements in the guard chambers or the heating elements in the switching sites.