ALL-OPTICAL INTERCONNECT UTILIZING POLARIZATION GATES

摘要

The present invention includes a switch element (100) which utilizes a single polarizer (110) to couple two discreet inputs to any combination of two discreet outputs (1, 2, 3, 4) along non-blocking optical paths. This switch element (100) may be conveniently networked to additional switch elements (100) for scaling to switches having larger numbers (N) of inputs and outputs such as shown as switches (150) and (150'). The present invention is relatively robust and insensitive to environmental disturbances and has a reconfiguration time which is an order of magnitude faster than conventional optomechanical switches which generally require tens of milliseconds before reconfiguration. It further provides for convenient scaling to a non-blocking NxN configuration using N<*>(log2 N-1) 2x2 switches rather than conventional approaches which require N (log2 N) switches, for a simple and compact configuration.