IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 19, NO.

6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013 3400307

Low-Crosstalk Balanced Bridge Interferometric-Type
Optical Switch for Optical Signal Routing
Akito Chiba, Tetsuya Kawanishi, Fellow, IEEE, Takahide Sakamoto, Member, IEEE, Kaoru Higuma,
Kazumasa Takada, and Masayuki Izutsu, Life Fellow, IEEE
AbstractCrosstalk is one of the signicant measures of an op-
tical cross-bar switch. In this paper, we describe a conguration
for crosstalk suppression of a balanced-bridge interferometric type
optical switch and its application to an optical-signal routing de-
vice. Since crosstalk of the optical switch originates from imbal-
ance in the amplitude of a lightwave propagating within the arm
of the interferometer, additional MachZehnder structures were
embedded for trimming the amplitude of the light. By adjusting
the transmittance of the trimmers, crosstalk of less than 56 dB
is achieved for dc voltage. Also, for high-frequency voltages, a
crosstalk estimation procedure was developed, and crosstalk at 10-
GHz sinusoidal voltage was evaluated to be 48 dB. Furthermore,
based on the transient response measurement, its switching time
was evaluated to be 26 ps. For a demonstration utilizing extremely
low crosstalk and quick response, a guard-time-free optical signal
routing experiment is also described.
Index TermsOptical crosstalk, optical modulation, optical
switches, routing.
I. INTRODUCTION
T
HE development of optical switches has been accelerat-
ing to satisfy demand in optical communication networks,
including quick response, increase of number of optical ports,
and low crosstalk. It has been addressed that an optical switch
becomes a bottleneck for increase of transmission rate in an
optical network, if we adopt slow-response optical switch. For
quick response, lithium niobate (LN) is attractive material for
optical devices due to its electro-optical (EO) effect. In addition
to the phase of light, the amplitude can be also precisely adjusted
by employing unique device structures on an LN substrate [1],
[2]. One of the conventional LN devices is an optical inten-
sity modulator utilizing the MachZehnder (MZ) waveguide
structure composed of two Y-junctions. Since the junction pos-
sesses one coupling port to a radiation mode, Y-junction seems
to be equivalent to an X-junction [3]: i.e., the MZ structure
Manuscript received March 1, 2013; revised April 29, 2013 and April 30,
2013; accepted May 1, 2013. Date of publication May 30, 2013; date of current
version July 23, 2013. This work was supported in part by NEDO (04A12007)
and in part by JSPS (20760254, 24760268).
A. Chiba and K. Takada are with the Division of Electronics and Informatics,
Faculty of Science and Technology, Gunma University, Gunma 376-0034, Japan
(e-mail: akito.chiba@osamember.org; takada@el.gunma-u.ac.jp).
T. Kawanishi and T. Sakamoto are with the Optical Network Institute, Na-
tional Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Tokyo
184-8795, Japan (e-mail: kawanish@nict.go.jp; tsaka@nict.go.jp).
K. Higuma is with the New Technology Research Laboratories, Sum-
itomo Osaka Cement Company Ltd., Chiba 274-8601, Japan (e-mail:
khiguma@soc.co.jp).
M. Izutsu is with Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University,
Tokyo 169-8555, Japan (e-mail: izutsu@aoni.waseda.jp).
Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identier 10.1109/JSTQE.2013.2263121
P2'
P1'
Fig. 1. Device structure of a 22 optical switch. P1, P2: input ports of light;
P1

, P2

: output ports of light; EA, EB, EM: electrode; MZA, MZB: Sub-MZ
structure as an intensity trimmer.
is also applicable to a waveguide-type optical switch. Such a
device is so-called balanced-bridge interferometric (BBI) type
optical switch [4], [5], whereas optical switches based on a di-
rectional coupler [6], an X junction [7], and an asymmetric-X
junction [8] are also fabricated. Polarization dependence of the
EO effect in an LN optical cross-bar switch has been overcome
by the polarization-diversity conguration [9].
Crosstalk is one of the signicant measures of an optical
switch, which induce mixing of optical signals at the switch.
Although the optical switch based on micro electromechanical
systems has low crosstalk, switching speed is limited by its
operation principle. Similar to the optical extinction ratio of
the MZ optical modulator, crosstalk of the BBI-type optical
switch originates from an imbalance in the amplitude between
lightwaves propagating in each arm of an MZ structure. In order
to achieve a BBI-type optical switch with 40-dB crosstalk,
less than 0.1-dB difference is required in the dividing ratio of
directional couplers consisting of an interferometer [10], [11].
In fabrication of the coupler, this requirement is severe to endure
fabrication tolerance, compared with MZ structure based on the
Y-junctions. Then, recently such a requirement in the difference
has been moderated by employing intensity trimmers [12].
In this paper, we describe a low-crosstalk optical cross-bar
switch employing intensity trimmers. In Section II, the device
structure of the optical switch wherein MZ structures as in-
tensity trimmers were embedded is introduced. In Section III,
after discussion on crosstalk for dc signal and its suppression,
crosstalk for an rf switching signal is estimated based on a
model analysis. In Section IV, the transient response of the
switch is investigated. In Section V, using the switch, extremely
low crosstalk onoff keying (OOK) signal switching without
any guard time is demonstrated. In Section VI, the dependence
of crosstalk suppression on the carrier wavelength is evaluated.
II. DEVICE STRUCTURE
We integrated an optical 22 switch on an X-cut LiNbO
3
substrate with a thickness of 1 mm and an area of about 2 mm
90 mm[11]. Fig. 1 shows its conguration, where optical waveg-
uides were fabricated by standard 15-h Ti thermal-diffusion pro-
cess. Two ports of one optical X-junction coupler (rst coupler)
1077-260X 2013 IEEE
3400307 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 19, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
are used for light input into the switch (P1 and P2 in Fig. 1),
while the other ports are connected with each input port of two
MZ structures (MZA and MZB in Fig. 1). Likewise, the out-
put ports of the MZ structures are connected to ports of the
other coupler (second coupler). For these couplers, the width
of the both waveguides connecting with the MZ structure was
optimized to be 7 m. On the other hand, the width of the other
waveguides was slightly modied in a range of fewm, in order
to achieve the lowcrosstalk when the conventional BBI-type op-
tical switch is constructed by the couplers. Both of the couplers
were designed to be 3-dB couplers for 1611.3-nm wavelength
lightwave. Actually, the fabrication results were sensitive for pa-
rameters such as diffusion time, due to large Ti diffusion along
to horizontal direction of the substrate. In the waveguide struc-
ture, optical paths between coupling regions of each coupler are
referred as the main-MZ structure for optical switching.
To choose an output port of light, we deposited a travelling-
wave electrode with waveguides between the couplers (main
electrode, EM in Fig. 1). By applying a voltage to EM, phase
difference of lightwaves propagating in each waveguide occurs
so that the output port of light can be controlled by the voltage.
Similarly, with each MZ structure, we also deposited electrodes
to control the balance in optical power propagating in each
waveguide (electrode A and electrode B, EA and EB in Fig. 1).
The halfwave voltages V

, required for change in optical inten-

sity transmitance from maximum to minimum, were 5.7, 15.6,
and 15.5 V for the main electrode, electrode A, and electrode
B, respectively. The 3-dB bandwidth of the main electrode was
evaluated to be 14.1 GHz by a lightwave component analyzer
(Agilent, E8361 C and 4373 C).
III. CROSSTALK SUPPRESSION BY INTENSITY TRIMMING
A. Measurement Setup
For evaluating crosstalk of the switch with nested MZ struc-
tures, we used an external-cavity diode laser (Agilent, 81642A
and 81682A) as a light source. Light launched into the input
port 1 of the optical 22 switch and light power was measured
at each output port by an optical power meter (dBm optics,
Model 4100, dynamic range: from 10 to 95 dBm). DC voltage
was applied to the EM for evaluating crosstalk for the dc sig-
nal, as described in Section III-B. For demonstrating continuous
routing of a lightwave (Section C) and for estimating crosstalk
at a high frequency signal (Section D), a square wave and a
sinusoidal wave with dc offset were applied, respectively.
B. Crosstalk for the DC signal
The effect of intensity trimming in the switch on its crosstalk
was evaluated. The intensity trimming is performed by adjust-
ing the intensity transmittance of SMZA and SMZB via a bias
voltage, so as to balance the amplitude of light propagating in
each arm of the interferometer for switching [11], [12]. For
comparison, crosstalk of the switch whose MZ structures had
maximum transmittance was also evaluated. The optical switch
adjusted to this condition seems to be a 22 MZ optical switch
without any MZ structures.
Fig. 2. Dependence of bias voltage applied to the main electrode on output
intensity transmittance when light is launched at the input port 1. The solid and
dashed lines indicate the case when the intensity in each arm are trimmed or
not, respectively. The thick and thin lines are the transmittance at output ports
1

and 2

, respectively.
Fig. 3. Time trace of output intensity measured at each output port. Each line
plotted in this gure is under the same conditions as the lines in Fig. 2.
The bias voltage dependence of the intensity transmittance
is shown in Fig. 2. In this plot, the zero in the horizontal axis
corresponds to the balanced state where the switch acts as a
3-dB coupler, and the axis is normalized by V

of the main
electrode. The vertical axis is also normalized by the maximum
power emitted at port 1

of the switch without intensity trim-

ming. The transmittance of the output port 1

, plotted using
thick lines, was minimized at the normalized bias voltage of
0.5. This minimum was further decreased from 33.6 to less
than 58.2 dB after intensity trimming. By trimming, the bias
voltage shift of EA was 2.1 V, which corresponds to a decrease
of 9% in amplitude transmittance by the MZ structure. On the
other hand, the decrease in the maximum transmittance is only
1.3 dB which is much smaller compared to the enhancement in
the intensity drop. By using the intensity trimming, we eventu-
ally obtained a crosstalk of less than 56 dBfor the port 1

. Such
a crosstalk suppression was also achieved for the output port 2

plotted using thin lines. At the normalized bias voltage of 0.5,

the intensity drop of 33.0 dB became less than 56.6 dB.
C. Output Port Selection by a Square Wave
The results shown in Fig. 2 also imply that alternate switching
with extremely low-crosstalk can be achieved by a square-wave
voltage with a peak-to-peak amplitude of V

. Fig. 3 shows a time

trace of an optical signal passing through the switch driven by
the square wave. The continuous-wave (CW) light launched into
input port 1 was 5.1 dBm, and the period of the square wave was
set at 200 ms. The solid lines were obtained after the intensity
trimming. The dashed lines were obtained when the intensity
CHIBA et al.: LOW-CROSSTALK BALANCED BRIDGE INTERFEROMETRIC-TYPE OPTICAL SWITCH 3400307
Fig. 4. Analysis model of a balanced-bridge interferometric type optical
switch with intensity trimmers. Bold lines indicate optical waveguides con-
sisting of the optical switch. Dashed arrows indicate propagation directions of
lightwave related to each transmission coefcient. 1, 2: Optical input port; 1

, 2

:
Optical output port;
1A
, i
1B
: Amplitude transmittance of 1st coupler;
A1
,
i
A2
, i
B1
,
B2
: Amplitude transmittance of the 2nd coupler;
A
,
B
: Am-
plitude transmittance of nested MZ structures as intensity trimmers. +, :
phase shift of lightwaves passing through the optical waveguides.
transmittance of the nested MZ structures was a maximum, so
that the intensity was not trimmed. The thick and thin lines
indicate the output intensity at ports 1

and 2

, respectively. As
shown in Fig. 3, either the bar state or the cross state is set
alternatively with a crosstalk of less than 55 dB. Although the
transient response of the switch seems to be slow, this is due
to the frequency bandwidth of the power meter possessing a
wide dynamic range. We also adopted an alternative method
for simultaneous evaluation of the frequency response and the
crosstalk, which is described in the following section.
D. Crosstalk for RF Switching Signal
As described in the previous section, simultaneous evalua-
tion of the rise/fall time and crosstalk of the switch would be
difcult, originating fromthe nite sensitivity (gain)-bandwidth
product of the optical-power detector. However, for a monochro-
matic rf signal, the crosstalk can be estimated from the intensity
peaks in the optical spectrum. When we feed a sinusoidal sig-
nal into the main electrode of the switch, a double sideband
suppressed-carrier (DSB-SC) optical modulation signal is cre-
ated at a drop port, and its carrier component in the optical
spectrum is suppressed together with the even-order sidebands.
Since the degree of carrier (and also even-order sidebands) sup-
pression in DSB-SC modulation depends on the crosstalk of the
switch, estimation of crosstalk is possible.
We consider the conguration where the CW light, whose
electric amplitude is E
0
, is launched into either input port (1
or 2) of the switch, as shown in Fig. 4. is the optical phase
shift induced in one waveguide. In another waveguide, the op-
posite phase shift (optical path length difference) is induced
simultaneously due to the pushpull operation, so that the phase
difference between lightwaves launching into each input port of
the second coupler is 2 . It should be noted that the condition
of = 0 corresponds to the cross state of the switch.
Assuming that incident light launched at input port n (n = 1
or 2), the electric eld of light (normalized by E
0
) at the output
port m

(m = 1 or 2) can be expressed as
E
nm

E
0
= i
n+m
_
(A
nm
+B
nm
)e
i
(1)
n+m
(A
nm
B
nm
)e
i
_
= 2i
_
A
nm
sin
_
+
n +m
2

_
iB
nm
cos
_
+
n +m
2

__
. (1)
Where A
nm
and B
nm
are constants related to the optical path
between the ports n and m

, depending on the amplitude trans-

mittance of the couplers and attenuation by the MZ structure:
A
nm
=
1
2
(
nA

Am
+
nB

Bm
) (2)
B
nm
=
1
2
(
nA

Am

nB

Bm
). (3)
Here,
nA
and
nB
are the absolute values of amplitude
transmittance of the rst coupler between port n and the port
connected to the MZ structures A and B, respectively. Similarly

Am
and
Bm
are the amplitude transmittance of the second
coupler. It should be noted that and implicitly include ex-
cess losses of the couplers.
A
and
B
represent the amplitude
transmittance at the MZ structures A and B used as intensity
trimmers, respectively. In the ideal optical switch wherein light
perfectly disappears at the drop port due to destructive interfer-
ence, B
nm
equals zero. When only dc bias is applied and swept,
the maximum of the normalized amplitude at the through port
corresponds to A
nm
. In other words, the value |A
nm
/ B
nm
|
2
is the extinction ratio of the switch at the output port m

, so that
|B
np
/ A
nm
|
2
corresponds to crosstalk at the output port m

(p
equals 1 or 2 and unequal to m).
Applying a dc bias voltage V
0
with sinusoidal voltage whose
amplitude and angular frequency are V
m
and
0
, respectively,
the optical phase shift induced in one waveguide corresponds
to
=
0
+ sin
0
t =

2
_
V
0
V
(DC)
+
V
m
V
(AC)
sin
0
t
_
(4)
where V
(DC)
and V
(AC)
are the halfwave voltages of the elec-
trode E
m
for the dc and rf signals, respectively. Launching light
into port 1, the normalized amplitudes at the output port 1

can
be expanded with respect to the above :
E
11

E
0
= 2 [B
11
cos
0
+iA
11
sin
0
]

p=
J
2p
() exp(i2p
0
t)
+ 2i [B
11
sin
0
iA
11
cos
0
]

p=
J
2p1
() exp(i(2p 1)
0
t). (5)
Then, even-order and odd-order sideband peaks I
2q
and I
2q1
in the normalized optical intensity spectrumat port 1

are derived
as
I
2q

_
B
2
11
cos
2

0
+A
2
11
sin
2

0
_
J
2
2q
() (6)
I
2q1

_
B
2
11
sin
2

0
+A
2
11
cos
2

0
_
J
2
2q1
() (7)
3400307 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 19, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
respectively. Similarly, at the output port 2

, the normalized
amplitude and sideband peak intensity are:
E
21

E
0
= 2 [iA
12
cos
0
B
12
sin
0
]

p=
J
2p
() exp(i2p
0
t)
+ 2i [iA
12
sin
0
+B
12
cos
0
]

p=
J
2p1
() exp(i(2p 1)
0
t), (8)
I
2q

_
A
2
12
cos
2

0
+B
2
12
sin
2

0
_
J
2
2q
() (9)
I
2q1

_
A
2
12
sin
2

0
+B
2
12
cos
2

0
_
J
2
2q1
(). (10)
As described previously, crosstalk corresponds to the square
of the ratio between B
np
and A
nm
, so that crosstalk can be
estimated from the peak-intensity ratio of sidebands measured
at each output port. If the degree of intensity trimming by the
MZ structure is small to achieve large crosstalk suppression,
imbalance in the coupling ratio at each coupler is also small, so
that the difference would be less than the excess-loss difference.
For example, if the relative error of the coupling ratio is 10%
for both couplers, then roughly 10%trimming in intensity would
be required. In this case, the difference between A
11
and A
21

would be estimated to be 1.4%, corresponding to 0.06 dB. Then,

crosstalk is also estimated from the optical spectrum acquired
at one port. From (6) and (7), at the
0
= 0 where port 1

is set
to the drop port, the following relation can be derived:
B
2
11

A
2
11

=
I
0
I
1
J
2
1
()
J
2
0
()
. (11)
Since the argument of the Bessel functions in the order of 0th
and rst is derived from the peak-intensity ratio for odd-order
sidebands, crosstalk at the cross state of the switch can be esti-
mated.
For evaluating the crosstalk for high-frequency voltage, the
spectrum of light passing through the optical switch driven
by the rf signal was evaluated [13]. 10 dBm CW lightwave
with 1611.3-nm wavelength is launched into input port 1 of the
switch, wherein 10-GHz sinusoidal voltage with an rf power of
21.9 dBm is applied. The bias voltage of the main electrode was
5.9 V so as to set the switch to the cross state: i.e. port 1

was
set as a drop port so that odd-order sidebands are dominant in
the lightwave.
Fig. 5 shows the optical spectra measured at output port 1

,
using an optical spectrum analyzer (Advantest, Q8386). The
solid curve indicates the case when the light within the switch
was trimmed by the nested MZ structures in order to suppress
crosstalk, while the dotted line was obtained from the switch in
which transmittance of both MZ structures is maximum. As can
be seen, for both curves, there are few differences in the peak
power of the odd-order sidebands, indicating that the effect of
intensity trimming is negligible for the desired components in
the lightwave. For the rst-order sideband, the peak intensity
was 29.45 dBm, which was almost the same as the rst-order
sidebands at port 2

of the switch set as the BAR state. On the

Fig. 5. Optical modulation spectrumacquired at port 1

of the switch. The solid

and dashed lines were obtained fromthe switch where the intensity trimmer was
activated or not activated, respectively.
other hand, suppression of the carrier and even-order sideband
were different: the peak power at carrier wavelength was sup-
pressed, from 50.1 to 68.1 dBm, by the intensity trimming.
Since obtained from the peak-intensity ratio between the
rst sideband and the third sideband is 0.201, crosstalk for
each condition is derived as 30.2 and 48.2 dB, respectively,
i.e., a crosstalk suppression of 18 dB was achieved for the rf
signal. Actually, in this case, crosstalk at port 2

was slightly
depressed due to the imbalance in the amplitude transmittance,
though it was also conrmed that such suppression can be pos-
sible for both ports in the order of 10 dB. These results indicate
that, in addition to low crosstalk, rapid switching would be ex-
pected without accumulation of undesired lightwave signals.
IV. TRANSIENT RESPONSE OF OPTICAL SWITCHING
The aforementioned results imply the possibility of the 22
switchas anideal port-switchingdevice, possessingbothrapid
response and extremely low crosstalk, so that a transient re-
sponse of the optical switch was evaluated [14]. As the input into
port 1 of the switch, the CW light generated from an external-
cavity diode laser (wavelength: 1609 nm) followed by an optical
amplier, and a polarization controller, were employed. The bias
voltage of the main electrode EM for output port selection was
adjusted to be equal in intensity between the output ports, and
a 50% duty ratio, 77-MHz rectangular signal was superposed
on the bias. For generating the rectangular signal with 20-Gb/s
signal rate, a conventional pulse-pattern generator (PPG), which
can generate a binary signal of up to 44-Gb/s, was used. The
rectangular signal was amplied by a broadband amplier with
a bandwidth of 38 GHz and 22-dBm saturation power, and ap-
plied to the electrode EMvia attenuators. Its waveformis shown
in Fig. 6(a). Fig. 6(b) shows the output light signal detected by
inverting-output photodiode having a bandwidth of 50 GHz,
after amplication by an EDFA followed by a Gaussian-shape
optical lter (3 dB bandwidth: 0.6 nm). In this gure, a substep-
like response due to the broadband amplier characteristic is
observed before the signal reaches its high-level state, and the
rise time for 20%80% in peak-to-peak voltage is evaluated
to be 26 ps. Some uctuation observed at both signal level on
Fig. 6(b) would be mainly due to photodiode itself, since such
a trace acquired by an optical port on the sampling oscilloscope
show less uctuation.
CHIBA et al.: LOW-CROSSTALK BALANCED BRIDGE INTERFEROMETRIC-TYPE OPTICAL SWITCH 3400307
Fig. 6. Time trace of (a) an electric signal applied to the main electrode of the
22 optical switch and the intensity at the output port of the optical switch. The
range is 20 ps/div for the horizontal axis and (a) 1 V/div. and (b) 0.01 V/div. for
the vertical axis, respectively.
Fig. 7. Experimental setup for the (a) Tx side, (b) switching side, and (c) Rx
side. Solid lines and dashed lines indicate an optical signal and an electric signal
for the data signal, respectively. LD: External-cavity laser diode; P.C.: Polar-
ization controller; Mod.: Optical Intensity modulator; Amp: Optical Amplier;
BPF: Optical band-pass lter; VOA: Variable optical attenuator; 1, 2: optical sig-
nal input port of the optical switch; 1

,2

: optical signal output port of the optical

switch; PM: Inline power meter; PD: Photodiode; rfAmp: broadband Amplier;
PPG: Pulse-pattern generator; BERT: Bit-error rate tester; OSC: oscilloscope.
V. DEMONSTRATION OF OOK SIGNAL SWITCHING
A. Setup
For evaluating switching performance for a nonreturn-to zero
OOK(NRZ-OOK) signal, an experimental setup shown in Fig. 7
was constructed. The light source described in Section III-Awas
also used in the setup. By using another 10-GHz PPG, a PRBS
sequence (length: 2
7
1) followed by a 0 was created as the data
signal, and the sequence was amplied by another broadband
amplier with a bandwidth of 18 GHz and saturation power of
24 dBm for intensity modulation of the light generated by the
source. The NRZ-modulation light was launched into the opti-
Fig. 8. Time trace (2 ns / div.) of intensity (0.1 mW/div) acquired at (a) the
port 1

and (b)(c) the port 2

of the switch, respectively. The switch was (a)(b)

alternatively driven by a rectangular voltage signal and (c) acts as a 3-dB optical
coupler by static dc bias voltage.
cal switch driven by the same rectangular signal as described
previously for port selection via an optical attenuator. The light
of one output port was detected in the same manner described
previously, except for the following point: after detection, the
signal was amplied by a 38-GHz bandwidth broadband am-
plier and divided into two paths for simultaneous observation
of time trace and bit-error rate (BER). During the experiment,
the two PPGs and the BER tester were synchronized by a 10-
GHz signal generator. It should be noted that, for simplicity, the
dc bias and 10-GHz signal generator for synchronizing pulse-
pattern generators and BER tester are omitted in Fig. 7.
B. Experimental Results
The time-traced intensity of the NRZ-OOK signal at output
port 1

and 2

are shown in Fig. 8(a) and (b), respectively. For

comparison, in Fig. 8(c), the optical signal at port 2

of the
switch where no port-selection signal is applied (i.e., the optical
switch acted as a 3-dB optical coupler) is also shown. As can
be seen, when each output port is at its drop state as determined
by the control signal, the output intensities of the switch are
sufciently dropped due to sufcient crosstalk enhanced by the
intensity trimmers.
BER characteristics for both output ports when the optical
data were launched into port 1 and 2 are shown in Fig. 9. Here,
the triangles and reversed triangles indicate the BERs measured
at port 1

and port 2

, respectively. For reference, the BER char-

acteristics were also measured for optical signals which did not
pass through the LN optical switch, indicated by white circles
in Fig. 9(a). The dashed line is the 3 dB shifted tting line of
the white circles, which indicates effective reference due to the
average power difference from the optical data passing through
the LN optical switch. A power penalty of 1.2 dB is observed
for optical signals passing through the switch from the input
3400307 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 19, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2013
Fig. 9. BER curves evaluated at the output port 1

(Triangles) and 2

(reversed
triangles), respectively. The optical signal launched at (a) port 1 and (b) port 2,
respectively. Open circles are obtained from the signal not passing through the
optical switch.
Fig. 10. Extinction ratio at port 1

of the switch when light was launched at

input port 1. Open circles are obtained from the switch in which intensity is
trimmed. Solid circles are obtained fromthe switch, bias of whose MZstructures
is set at maximum-transmittance bias point.
port 1 to the output port 1

. When we changed the timing of

port selection against the optical data signal launched into port
1, 0.3 and 1.0 dB power penalties were observed for BERs of
the signals emitted at the output ports 1

and 2

respectively, so
that the dependence on the switching timing for the data would
be negligible. This implies that the guard time of the packet-
like optical data can be decreased further by using an adequate
optical switch and developing port-selection control protocols.
VI. WAVELENGTH DEPENDENCE OF CROSSTALK
We investigated the effectiveness of the intensity trimmer for
other carrier wavelengths, by adopting the extinction ratio at
output port 1

as a measure. Fig. 10 shows the dependence of

the extinction ratio on the wavelength ranging from 1525.0 to
1635.0 nm. In this gure, the open circles are obtained from the
switch, where intensity trimming is performed at each wave-
length. For comparison, extinction ratio of the switch acting
as a conventional BBI cross-bar switch, i.e., transmittance of
nested MachZehnder structures are set to its maximum, is also
plotted by the lled circle. By controlling the MZ bias voltages,
at the drop port (port 1

) the extinction ratio was enhanced over

the wavelength range of 110 nm which almost covers the range
near the C- and L-band. The maximum increase in extinction
ratio at port 1

was 37.1 dB at 1562.5-nm wavelength, which

reached 46 dB in the extinction ratio. In this case, when the ex-
tinction ratio at one port was initially poor before the intensity
trimming, the intensity trimming has a smaller inuence on the
extinction ratio at the other port. Actually, amplitude transmit-
tance of the two couplers deviate from ideal for the wavelength
far from1611.3 nm, and such dependence on wavelength is sym-
metric with respect to inputoutput port combination. Then, for
crosstalk suppression in wide wavelength at both ports, more de-
tailed optimization of the coupler for wavelength-independent
operation would be unavoidable. By combination with the in-
tensity trimmer, BBI-type optical switch with extremely low
crosstalk would be endured for lightwave without dependence
on the wavelength.
VII. CONCLUSION
Crosstalk of the BBI-type optical cross-bar switch is highly
suppressed, by adjusting embedded MZ structures as intensity
trimmers in each arm. By adjusting transmittance of the MZ
structures, intensity imbalance in the interferometer is highly
suppressed, so that the crosstalk of less than 55 dB has been
achieved. And, for a high-frequency voltage signal, the deviation
of the crosstalk from an optical spectrum is introduced. Accord-
ing to the procedure, it is shown that the trimmer can also be
useful for quick optical switching. Utilizing the extremely high
crosstalk and rapid response of the switch, OOK signal routing
has also been demonstrated without any guard time. Nested MZ
structures as intensity trimmers would be a useful conguration
to improve the performance of the BBI-type optical switch.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Dr. G. -W. Lu of NICT for
his encouragement and fruitful discussions.
REFERENCES
[1] A. Chiba, T. Sakamoto, T. Kawanishi, K. Higuma, M. Sudo, and
J. Ichikawa, 16-level quadrature amplitude modulation by monolithic
quad-parallel MachZehnder optical modulator, Electron. Lett., vol. 46,
no. 3, pp. 227228, Feb. 2010.
[2] G. -W. Lu, T. Sakamoto, A. Chiba, T. Kawanishi, T. Miyazaki, K. Higuma,
and J. Ichikawa, Optical minimum-shift-keying transmitter based on a
monolithically integrated quad MachZehnder in-phase and quadrature
modulator, Opt. Lett., vol. 34, no. 14, pp. 21442147, Jul. 2009.
[3] M. Izutsu, Y. Nakai, and T. Sueta, Operation mechanism of the single-
mode optical-waveguide Yjunction, Opt. Lett., vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 136138,
Mar. 1982.
[4] V. Ramaswamy, M. Divino, and R. K. Standley, A balanced bridge mod-
ulator switch, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 32, no. 10, pp. 644646, May 1978.
[5] O. Mikami and S. Zembutsu, Modied balanced-bridge switch with two
straight waveguides, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 145147, Jul.
1979.
[6] M. Papuchon, Y. Combemale, X. Mathieu, D. B. Ostrowsky, L. Reiber,
A. M. Roy, S. Sejourne, and M. Werner, Electrically switched optical
directional coupler: Cobra, Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 289291,
Sep. 1975.
[7] H. Nakajima, I. Sawaki, M. Seino, and T. Yamane, Bipolar-voltage con-
trolled optical switch fabricated on Z-cut Ti:LiNbO
3
intersecting wave-
guide, IEICE Trans. Electron., vol. J71-C, pp. 672677, 1988.
[8] Y. Silberberg, P. Perlmutter, and J. E. Baran, Digital optical switch,
Appl. Phys. Lett., vol. 51, no. 16, pp. 12301232, Oct. 1987.
[9] K. Suzuki, T. Yamada, O. Moriwaki, H. Takahashi, and M. Okuno,
Polarization-insensitive MZI switch composed of an LN phase shifter
array and silica-based PLC-integrated polarization beam splitter,
CHIBA et al.: LOW-CROSSTALK BALANCED BRIDGE INTERFEROMETRIC-TYPE OPTICAL SWITCH 3400307
presented at the 2008 Opt. Fiber Commun. Conf., San Diego, CA, USA,
Mar. 2008, Paper OWI7.
[10] R. Alferness, Guided-wave devices for optical communication, IEEE J.
Quant. Electron., vol. QE-17, no. 6, pp. 946959, Jun. 1981.
[11] A. Chiba, T. Kawanishi, T. Sakamoto, K. Higuma, and M. Izutsu,
Crosstalk suppression of a balanced bridge interferometric-type LiNbO
3
optical switch by using MachZehnder structures, IEEEPhoton. Technol.
Lett., vol. 20, no. 10, pp. 872874, May 2008.
[12] T. Kawanishi, T. Sakamoto, M. Tsuchiya, M. Izutsu, S. Mori, and
K. Higuma, 70 dB extinction-ratio LiNbO
3
optical intensity modula-
tor for two-tone lightwave generation, presented at the Tech. Dig. Opt.
Fiber Commun. Conf. 2006, Anaheim, CA, USA, 2006, Paper OWC4.
[13] A. Chiba, T. Kawanishi, T. Sakamoto, K. Higuma, and M. Izutsu, High-
extinction-ratio (>55 dB) port selection by using a high-speed LiNbO
3
optical switch with intensity trimmers, in Proc. Tech. Dig. IEEE-LEOS
Photonics in Switching, Aug. 2007, pp. 5152.
[14] A. Chiba, T. Kawanishi, T. Sakamoto, K. Higuma, and M. Izutsu, Guard-
time-free port selection by a LiNbO
3
optical switch embedded intensity
trimmers for optical packet switching, presented at the Opt. Fiber Com-
mun. Conf., San Diego, CA, Mar. 2009, Paper JThA35.
Akito Chiba received the B.E. degree in electric and
precision engineering, and the M.E. and Ph.D. de-
grees in the eld of electronics and information engi-
neering from Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan,
in 2000, 2002, and 2005, respectively.
From20052010, he was with Lightwave Devices
Project in New-Generation Network Research Cen-
ter, National Institute of Information and Communi-
cations Technology (NICT), Koganei, Tokyo, Japan,
where he was engaged in lithium niobate electrooptic
devices and their applications to optical communica-
tion. From 20102011, he joined the Faculty of Engineering, Shizuoka Univer-
sity, Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan, as a Postdoctoral Fellow for CREST Project
supported by Japan Science and Technology Agency, where he was involved
in the development of cathodoluminescent thin lm for electron-beam-assisted
high-resolution optical imaging. Since 2011, he has been an Assistant professor
in the Division of Electronics and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Tech-
nology, Gunma University, Kiryu, Gunma, Japan. His current research interests
include the eld of applied optics and ber optics utilizing modulation and de-
modulations for optical communication and measurement.
Dr. Chiba is a member of the Optical Society, the Japan Society of Applied
Physics, and the Institute of Electronics, Information, and Communication En-
gineering of Japan.
Tetsuya Kawanishi (M06SM06F13) received
the B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees in electronics
from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1992, 1994,
and 1997, respectively. From 1994 to 1995, he was
with the Production Engineering Laboratory, Mat-
sushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic) Company, Ltd.
In 1997, he was with Venture Business Laboratory of
Kyoto University, where he was engaged in research
on electromagnetic scattering and on near-eld op-
tics. He joined the Communications Research Lab-
oratory, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications
(now the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology,
NICT), Koganei, Tokyo, Japan, in 1998. In 2004, he was a Visiting Scholar
with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
California, San Diego, USA. He is currently a Leader of Lightwave Devices
Laboratory, Photonic Network Research Institute in NICT, and is working on
high-speed optical modulators and on RF photonics. Dr. Kawanishi received
the URSI Young Scientists Award in 1999, an award for young scientists in the
eld of science and technology in 2006, from ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan.
Takahide Sakamoto (S98M03) was born in
Hyogo, Japan, in 1975. He received the B.S., M.S.,
and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from the
University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1998, 2000,
and 2003, respectively.
Since 2003, he has been with the Communications
Research Laboratory (now National Institute of In-
formation and Communications Technology, NICT),
Tokyo, Japan, where he is engaged in the area of
optical-ber communications. In 20102012, he was
a Visiting Scholar with the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, University of California, Davis, supported by Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science. He is currently a Senior Researcher of
Lightwave Devices Laboratory, Photonic Network Research Institute in NICT.
His current research interests include ber-optic devices and subsystems for
optical modulation/demodulation and signal processing.
Dr. Sakamoto is a member of the IEEE Photonics Society and the Institute
of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineering (IEICE) of Japan.
Kaoru Higuma received the B.E. and M.E. degrees
in physics from Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in
1994 and 1996, respectively.
In 1996, he joined the Opto-Electronics Research
Division, New Technology Research Laboratories,
Sumitomo Osaka Cement Company, Ltd., Chiba,
Japan. He has been engaged in the research and de-
velopment of LN optical modulators.
Kazumasa Takada was born in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, on May 14, 1955.
He received the B.S. degree in physics from Saitama University, Japan, in 1979,
and the M.S. degree in physics, and the Ph.D. degree in electronics engineering
from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1981 and 1993, respectively.
In 1981, he joined the Ibaraki Electrical Communication Laboratory, Nippon
Telegraph, and Telephone Public Corporation, Ibaraki, Japan, where he worked
on characterization of birefringent polarization-maintaining bers and devel-
opment of optical ber gyroscopes using the polarization-maintaining bers.
From 1989 to 1992, he was engaged in research on photonic switching systems.
Since 1992, he has been involved in the eld of optical low coherence interfer-
ometry for planar lightwave circuits. Since 2002, he has been a Professor in the
Department of Electronic Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering (now
Division of Electronics and Informatics, Faculty of Science and Technology),
Gunma University, Kiryu, Gunma, Japan.
Dr. Takada is a member of the Optical Society (OSA).
Masayuki Izutsu (S70M75SM90F04
LF13) received the B.E., M.E., and D.Eng. degrees
in electrical engineering from Osaka University,
Osaka, Japan, in 1970, 1972, and 1975, respectively.
He joined the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, Faculty of Engineering Science, Osaka
University, in 1975, where he was involved in the
eld of guided-wave optoelectronics. From 1983
to 1984, he was a Senior Visiting Research Fellow
at the Department of Electronics and Electrical
Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, U.K.
In 1996, he joined the Communications Research Laboratory, Ministry of
Posts and Telecommunications (now the National Institute of Information and
Communications Technology, NICT), where he served as a Distinguished
Researcher, and was in-charge of its New Generation Network Research Center
as a special duty as well. After he retired from NICT, in 2008, he served as a
Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, till 2011, and has also
been a Guest Professor, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
Dr. Izutsuis serving as a cooperate member of the Science Council of
Japan, a member of Japanese National Committee for International Union
of Radio Science (URSI), Editor-in-chief, Electronics Express published
from the Institute of Electronics, Information, and Communication Engineers
(IEICE).He is a Fellow IEICE, Senior Member OSA, and member JSAP. He
received the Best Paper Award and the Award for Signicant Achievement in
1981 and 1988, respectively, from IEICE.