Abstract

The basic structure of the noninterferometric switch (Fig. 1) is built in three sections: two passive polarization splitters and a mode-converter section.¹ If no voltage is applied to the mode converter electrodes, arbitrarily polarized light incident in one of the two input arms will exit one arm. The quality of this defined switching state at zero voltage, which means the level of residual cross talk in the other output arm, depends only on the quality of the polarization splitters. By applying an appropriate switching voltage to the mode converter electrodes, the TE and TM components are transformed into their orthogonal counterparts, so that they are leaving the complementary output arm. (The structure is similar to that shown in Ref. 2).

© 1990 Optical Society of America