Micro-optical switch with uni-directional I/O fibers

The authors have developed a new 2/spl times/2 micro-optical switch. The switch features a uni-directional input/output and a drive mechanism with latch functions. The newly developed structure combines two moving mirrors and a fixed V mirror to implement a 2/spl times/2 micro-optical switch with uni-directional input/output. Furthermore, the moving mirrors have been reduced in size by integrating the drive and latch functions by the use of magnetic shaft mirrors and driving coils. The micro-optical switch has been implemented as a module mounted in a ceramic package. The modular switch is 23.5/spl times/9.86/spl times/6.76 mm in size and provides a switching time of 1.3 ms for 15 V (469 mA) and an input pulse width of 1 ms. The reflectivity of the moving mirror is 98.6% (reflection loss: 0.06 dB) and the connection loss between the fixed mirror surfaces is 5.4 dB.