Integrated thermo-optic switches in silica/polymer waveguide technology

Thermo-optic 1x2 vertical coupler switches (VCSs) using a hybrid polymer/silica integration technology were designed using finite element method and coupled mode method for different refractive index contrasts. The multilayer structures were optimized by thermal analysis. Based on this design and simulation, hybrid polymer/silica thermo-optic 1x2VSCs exhibiting low insertion loss, low crosstalk, low switching power, and polarization independence were demonstrated. Using this 1x2VCS as the building block, a 1x8VCS has been implemented.