Construction of large scale switch matrix by interconnecting integrated optical switch chips with EDFAs

Large scale optical switches are essential components in optical communication network. We aim to build up a large scale optical switch matrix by the interconnection of silicon-based optical switch chips using 3-stage CLOS structure, where EDFAs are needed to compensate for the insertion loss of the chips. The optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) performance of the resulting large scale optical switch matrix is investigated for TE-mode light and the experimental results are in agreement with the theoretical analysis. We build up a 64×64 switch matrix by use of 16×16 optical switch chips and the OSNR and receiver sensibility can respectively be improved by 0.6 dB and 0.2 dB by optimizing the gain configuration of the EDFAs.