Compact Optical Switch Using the Tunability of a Au-Coated Hollow Core Waveguide

Division of Information Communication Engineering, Hoseo University, Asan 31499, Korea
Correspondence to: Chang-Hwan Bae
Abstract
We design and fabricate a directional coupler type compact optical switch using the large variable characteristics of a hollow optical waveguide and use numerical simulations and experimentations to investigate the optical characteristics of the proposed directional coupler-type hollow waveguide optical switch. The designed 3-D optical hollow waveguide consists of a Au-coated reﬂector. The numerical simulation results show the possibility of a compact optical switch with a switch length of 1 mm when the air core thickness of the hollow optical waveguide is changed by 2 $\mu$m. The experiment revealed a switching length of 0.9 mm and an extinction ratio of about 19 dB with a small change of air core thickness.
PACS numbers: 42.25.Bs, 42.65.Pc
Keywords: Optical switch, Hollow waveguide, Directional coupler, Au film, Effective refractive index, Air core

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