NxN switching arrangement of two planar arrays without waveguide crossings

摘要

An NxN crossconnect switch is implemented without the use of waveguide crossings. In one embodiment, the NxN crossconnect switch uses two non-parallel planar arrays of 1x2 and 2x1 switching elements combined with a cylindrical reflector. In another embodiment, the NxN crossconnect switch includes an input planar array and output planar array implemented on a single wafer both having a refractive index n>1 separated by a central region having a refractive index n0=1.