Optically actuated all optical mechanical switch

As speeds in communications, sensing, and computation increase rapidly, fast switching mechanisms are essential. Since optical signal processing has distinct advantages over electromechanical or magnetic processing due to its reliability in harsh environments, optical switching techniques have received much attention for addressing these applications. Because of the complexity of optical switching mechanisms, often one must trade off one or more of the five basic parameters: throughput/rejection efficiency, actuation power, cost, speed, and size. We discuss a novel approach based on MEMS for optical switching that could optimize all five parameters simultaneously. In addition, since this is an optically actuated optical switch, nonconductors can also be actuated, such as ultrahigh resonant frequency diamond MEMS waveguides. With this approach, we can take advantage of photons over electrons due to the use of two-way conductors, cross conductors, ultrahigh bandwidth and multiwavelength operation. Even though there are many other optical switch designs, this microdevice is unique for being an all-optical device.