Abstract

Practical free-space photonic switches and optical processors require the development of high performance optical and optomechanical systems.¹ Desirable attributes include low costs, compact size, ease of alignment, high mechanical and thermal stability, low component count, low wavefront aberration, high optical throughput, modularity for maintenance and repair, and low signal nonuniformity.² We present an optical and optomechanical system design that addresses these goals. We have demonstrated the cascaded operation of two 64 × 32 arrays of S-SEEDs, providing 4096 optical interconnections between the two arrays. This compact (9 × 13 in.) and stable system is used in implementing of a fully interconnected six-stage banyan network.

© 1991 Optical Society of America