Reconfigurable nonblocking 4-port silicon thermo-optic optical router based on Mach-Zehnder optical switches

We demonstrate a reconfigurable nonblocking 4-port silicon thermo-optic optical router based on Mach-Zehnder optical switches. For all optical links in its 9 routing states, the optical signal-to-noise ratios are larger than 15 dB in the wavelength range from 1525 to 1565 nm. Each optical link of the optical router can manipulate 50 wavelength-division-multiplexing channels with the data rate of 32 Gbps for each channel in the same wavelength range. Its average energy efficiency is about 16.3 fJ/bit, and its response time is about 19 μs.