Assessment of low polarization sensitive InP photonic integrated multicast and select switch with commercial 400G-ZR...

The increasing demand for high-capacity optical networks necessitates innovative solutions for efficient traffic aggregation and dynamic routing. To address these challenges, this study presents the first experimental demonstration of a 400Gbps low polarization-sensitive multicast selective switch(MCS) implemented on an InP-based photonic integrated circuit (PIC). The switch integrates advanced active Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) technology and passive multimode interference (MMI) power splitters, achieving an on-chip gain exceeding 30 dB, a net fiber gain of 5.5 dB, and a noise figure (NF) of 6.6 dB, and a more than 35 dB switching extinction ratio. A comprehensive evaluation of the switch's performance in a 400Gbps dual-polarization(DP) coherent transmission setup demonstrates its ability to achieve error-free transmission with an optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) penalty of less than 0.3 dB and a low polarization-dependent loss (PDL) below 1.8 dB.