MEMS Optical Devices — MEMS OXC

Application of OXC
Optical cross connect is a matrix switch usually with N×N ports. The OXC can be used to construct a CDC ROADM (Colorless, Directionless, and Contentionless Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop Multiplexer), as shown in Fig.1 [1].

Fig.1 CDC ROADM based on WSS and OXC [1]

OXC Constructed by 1×N Optical Switches
The OXC can be constructed by 1×N optical switches, as shown in Fig.2. It requires 2N 1×N optical switch to construct a N×N OXC. Thus the size and cost of the OXC module increase rapidly with the incensement of port number N. OXC of this structure is usually limited to below 32×32 ports.