A high-speed high-isolation fiber-optic matrix switch using only one acousto-optic
device with phased array transducers is disclosed. Previously disclosed fiber-optic
switches either required spatially separated more than one acousto-optic devices
making them complex, hard to align and expensive or could not achieve high-isolation
and low-insertion loss performance. A simple structure of 22 fiber-optic
matrix switch with one phased array transducer as disclosed here is expected to
make acousto-optic based fiber-optic switches more attractive than similar MEMs
based switches. Use of shared lens instead of individual lenses at the input and
output fiber array is expected to further reduce complexity and cost of the acousto-optic
based fiber-optic switches.
