Unlocking Electro-optic Resonant Phase Shifting for Multi-dimensional, Ultra-dynamic Photonic Switches

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel analytical approach to micro-ring resonant phase shifters, enabling ultra-fast, multi-dimensional optical switching with nanosecond reconfigurability for high-capacity photonic networks.

Contribution

It presents an innovative transmission circle chart method to fully utilize resonant phase shifters, enhancing optical switch design and multi-wavelength operation capabilities.

Findings

Achieves nanosecond-scale reconfigurability in optical switches.

Provides a comprehensive model for under, critically, and over-coupled resonators.

Enables versatile, high-capacity multi-wavelength photonic switching.

Abstract

Optical circuit switching is connection-oriented, being deterministic through the reservation of a complete wavelength channel or spatial path for a certain period. However, this comes at a trade-off against link dynamics, and overall capacity can thus be constrained by the time slot reservations, especially for switches with microsecond- to millisecond-scale reconfiguration times. For data-intensive applications, the communication patterns associated with random data sets typically yield short-lived flows. This situation calls for a new multi-dimensional switching paradigm that fully exploits not only the space and wavelength domains but also with nanosecond-scale reconfigurable capability in the time domain to enable ultra-dynamic links. In this work, we focus on the exploitation of micro-ring resonant phase shifters (RPSs) that are wavelength selective for optical switching in a single plane. By proposing an innovative analytical method with transmission circle chart, we fully unlock the power of RPS with nanosecond-scale reconfigurability and the capability to arbitrarily manipulate its phase and amplitude. Such a compact model offers fresh insights into designs with under and critically coupled RPSs beyond the commonly explored over-coupling condition. This creates not only versatile switch elements but also perfect absorbers for robust multi-wavelength operations. The proposed device can bring about a breakthrough in the optical switching capacity that potentially addresses the challenges faced by modern data center networks, as well as other photonic circuits for high-throughput signal processing.