Abstract Ultracompact and low-power-consumption optical switches are desired for high-performance telecommunication networks and data centers. Here, we demonstrate an on-chip power-efficient 2 × 2 thermo-optic switch unit by using a suspended photonic crystal nanobeam structure. A submilliwatt switching power of 0.15 mW is obtained with a tuning efficiency of 7.71 nm/mW in a compact footprint of 60 μm × 16 μm. The bandwidth of the switch is properly designed for a four-level pulse amplitude modulation signal with a 124 Gb/s raw data rate. To the best of our knowledge, the proposed switch is the most power-efficient resonator-based thermo-optic switch unit with the highest tuning efficiency and data ever reported.

中文翻译：

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用于高速数据的超紧凑和低功耗硅热光开关

摘要 高性能电信网络和数据中心需要超紧凑、低功耗的光开关。在这里，我们通过使用悬浮光子晶体纳米束结构展示了片上节能的 2 × 2 热光开关单元。在 60 μm × 16 μm 的紧凑封装中，获得了 0.15 mW 的亚毫瓦开关功率和 7.71 nm/mW 的调谐效率。开关的带宽针对原始数据速率为 124 Gb/s 的四级脉冲幅度调制信号进行了适当设计。据我们所知，所提出的开关是最节能的基于谐振器的热光开关单元，具有最高的调谐效率和有史以来报告的数据。