Polarization-Insensitive Digital Optical Switch Using an Electro-Optic Polymer Rib Waveguide

The digital optical switch (DOS) based on lithium niobate, semiconductors, and thermooptic polymers [1,2] has attracted much attention as a promising guided-wave switching device. Its advantages include wavelength-insensitive operation and relaxed fabrication tolerance. The guided-wave device in electro-optic (EO) polymers [3] has a small velocity mismatch and a low dielectric constant that are favorable for high-speed operation and small coupling loss to the fiber. Recently, we fabricated an EO polymer DOS with photobleached waveguides [4]. Though the DOS operates independent of the wavelength, but it is not polarization independent since the waveguide fabricated by using photobleaching (PB) method can not support TE modes [3].