VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

“Jnana Sangama”, Belagavi 590018

SYNOPSIS
on

“Modern
“ Optical Switches for Optical Communication” ”
Submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Degree o f
Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics & Communication Engineering

Submitted by
Mr. Nagesh N Malge USN : 1VA18EC064
Mr. Akshay kumar N G USN : 1VA18EC005
Mr. Nakrani Jugal Kumar USN :1VA18EC65
Mr. Harshith M USN :1VA18EC038

Under the guidance of

Dr . Venkatesha M
Assistant Professor, Dept. of ECE

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS & COMMUNICATION

ENGINEERING

SAI VIDYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

( Affiliated to VTU, Belagavi, Approved by AICTE, New Delhi and Govt. of Karnataka )
R ajanukunte, Bangalore-560064
2020-2021
 SAI VIDYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
(Affiliated to Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belagavi | Recognized by Govt. of Karnataka | Approved by AICTE, New
Delhi)

Rajanukunte, Bengaluru- 560 064

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND COMMUNICATION

ENGINEERING
CERTIFICATE
Certified that the Project Phase work entitle “MODERN OPTICAL SWITCHES FOR
OPTICAL COMMUNICATION” carried out by NAGESH N
MALGE(1VA18EC064), AKSHAYKUMAR(1VA18EC005),
,NAKRANIJUGALKUMAR(1VA18EC065), HARSHITH M(1VA18EC038) a
bonafide students of SAI VIDYA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Bengaluru, in
partial fulfillment for the award of Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering
of VISVESVARAYA TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY, Belagavi during the year
2020-21. It is certified that all corrections/suggestions indicated for Internal
Assessment have been incorporated in the Report deposited in the departmental library.
The Mini Project report has been approved as it satisfies the academic requirements in
respect of Mini Project work prescribed for the said Degree.

Dr.Venkatesh M Prof. Vikramathithan Dr. H S Ramesh Babu

Assistant Professor, AC
Principal
Professor & Head
Dept. of ECE,
Dept. of ECE,
SVIT
SVIT Signature of
CIE SEE Total (100)
the
Introductory Final Final (60) Examiners
Presentation(20)
(20)

Dept. of ECE SVIT 1

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The completion of project brings with and sense of satisfaction, but it is never
completed without thanking the persons who are all responsible for its successful
completion. First and foremost I wish to express our deep sincere feelings of
gratitude to my Institution, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, for providing me an
opportunity to do our education.

I would like to thank the Management and Prof. M R Holla, Director, Sai
Vidya Institute of Technology for providing the facilities.

I extend my deep sense of sincere gratitude to Dr. H S Ramesh Babu,

Principal, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, for having permitted to
carry out the project work on “MODERN OPTICAL SWITCHES FOR
OPTICAL COMMUNICATION” successfully

I express my heartfelt sincere gratitude to VIKRAMATHITHAN A C,

Professor and HOD, Department of Electronics And Communication Engineering ,
Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, for his valuable suggestions and
support.

I express my sincere gratitude to Dr.Venkatesh M, Assistant Professor,

Project Guide, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sai Vidya Institute of
Technology, Bengaluru, for his constant support.

Finally, I would like to thank all the Teaching, Technical faculty and
supporting staff members of Department Electronics and Communication
Engineering, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, for their support.

1VA18EC064 Nagesh N Malge

1VA18EC005 Akshay kumar NG

1VA18EC065 Nakrani jugal kumar

1VA18EC038 Harshith M

Dept. of ECE SVIT 2

 ABSTRACT

Theoretically optical switches seem to be future proof with features of scalability,

flexibility, bit rate and protocol independent coupled with lower infrastructure costs but
a network service provider must evaluate the pros and cons and all possible options to
select optimum combination of electronic and photonic switches to meet the capacity
and traffic management requirements. This seminar presents an overview on optical
switches.
With their improved efficiency and lower costs, optical switches provide the key to both
manage the new capacity Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing(DWDM) links as well
as gain a competitive advantage for provision of new band width services. However, in
an optically switched network the challenge lies in overcoming signal impairment and
network related parameters. Let us discuss the present status, advantages and
challenges and future trends in optical switches.
Today fibres are pure enough that a light signal can travel for about 80 kilometers
without the need for amplification. But at some point signal still needs to be boosted.
Electronics for amplitude signal were replaced by stretches of fibre infused with ions of
the rere-earth erbium . When these erbium-doped fibres were zapped by a pump laser,
the excited could revive a fading signal. They restore a signal without any optical to
electronic conversion and can do so for very high speed signals sending tens of gigabits
a second. Most importantly they can boost the power of many wavelengths
simultaneously. The enormous bit conduits will flounder if the light streams are routed
using conventional electronic switches, which require a multi-terabit signal to be
converted into hundreds of lower speed electronic signals. Finally,switched singnals
would have to be reconverted to photons and reaggregated into light channels that are
then sent out through a designated output fiber.

Dept. of ECE SVIT 3

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE NUM
ABSTRACT 2

LITERATURE SURVEY 3
OPTICAL FIBERS 4

OPTICAL SWITCHES 5

MEMS 6
Thermo-Optical Switch 8
Bubble Switch 9
Liquid Crystal Switch 10
Nonlinear Optical Switch 11

ADVANCEMENTS IN OPTICAL SWITCHES 12


CONCLUSION 14

REFERENCES 15

Dept. of ECE SVIT 4

 LITERATURE SURVEY

TOPIC OF Optical Switches and Advancements

PAPER
REFERRED/
Journal

Problems To develop optical networks instead of telecommunication networks

which paper because it is expected that the data oriented network traffic will double
has every year.
addressed
Problem An Optical networks are widly regarded as the ultimate solution to the
solution that bandwidth needs of future communication systems.it overcomes the
we can find electronic switching at the nodes limits bandwidth of a network.
out from this
Positive’s • Reduces the congestion found in previous networks.
• Much efficient
• fast

Negative’s  Cost of optical switches increases based on project.


OPTICAL FIBERS
Dept. of ECE SVIT 5
A fiber consists of a glass core and a surrounding layer called the cladding. The core and
cladding have carefully chosen indices of refraction to ensure that the photos
propagating in the core are always reflected at the interface of the cladding. The only
way the light can enter and escape is through the ends of the fiber. A transmitter either
alight emitting diode or a laser sends electronic data that have been converted to
photons over the fiber at a wavelength of between 1,200 and 1,600 nanometers.

Today fibers are pure enough that a light signal can travel for about 80 kilometers
without the need for amplification. But at some point the signal still needs to be boosted.
Electronics for amplitude signal were replaced by stretches of fiber infused with ions of
the rare-earth erbium. When these erbium-doped fibers were zapped by a pump laser,
the excited ions could revive a fading signal. They restore a signal without any optical to
electronic conversion and can do so for very high speed signals sending tens of gigabits
a second. Most importantly they can boost the power of many wavelengths
simultaneously.
Now to increase information rate, as many wavelengths as possible are jammed down a
fiber, with a wavelength carrying as much data as possible. The technology that does
this has a name-dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM ) – that is a paragon of
technospeak.
Switches are needed to route the digital flow to its ultimate destination. The enormous
bit conduits will flounder if the light streams are routed using conventional electronic
switches, which require a multi-terabit signal to be converted into hundreds of
lowerspeed electronic signals. Finally, switched signals would have to be reconverted to
photons and reaggregated into light channels that are then sent out through a
designated output fiber.

 The cost and complexity of electronic switching prompted to find a means of

redirecting either individual wavelengths or the entire light signal in a fiber from
one path way to another without the opto-electronic conversion.

Dept. of ECE SVIT 6

 OPTICAL SWITCHES
Optical switches will switch a wavelength or an entire fiberform one pathway to
another, leaving the data-carrying packets in a signal untouched. An electronic signal
from electronic processor will set the switch in the right position so that it directs an
incoming fiber – or wavelengths within that fiber- to a given output fiber. But none of
the wavelengths will be converted to electrons for processing.

Optical switching may eventually make obsolete existing lightwave technologies

based on the ubiquitous SONET (Synchronous Optical Network) communications
standard, which relies on electronics for conversion and processing of individual
packets. In tandem with the gradual withering away of Asynchronous Transfer Mode
(ATM), another phone company standard for packaging information.
 “MEMS”
Introduction
Micro-electro Mechanical Systems or MEMS is a new process for device fabrication,
which builds “micromechines” that are finding increasing acceptance in many industries
ranging form telecommunications to automotive, aerospace, consumer electronics and
others.
In essence, MEMS are Mechanical Integrated circuits, using photo lithographic and
etching processes similar to those employed in making large scale integrated circuits –
devices that are deposited and patterned on a silicon-wafer’s surface.

Construction
In MEMS, oxide layers are etched away to sculpt the device’s structural elements.
Instead of creating transistors, though, lithographic processes built devices a few tens or
hundreds of microns in dimension that move when directed by an electrical signal.
Silicon mirrors are manufactured by self-assembly- a novel step that takes its name from
the way amino-acids in protein molecules fold themselves into three-dimensional
shapers. In the final stage of manufacture, tiny springs on the silicon surface release the
mirrors and a frame around each on lifts them and locks them in place, positioning them
high enough above the surface to allow for a range of movement.

Working
Software in the switch’s processor makes a decision about where an incoming
stream of photons should go. It sends a signal to an electrode on the chip’s surface
that generates an electric field that tilts the mirrors. The wavelengths bounce off the
input mirrors and get reflected off another mirror onto output mirrors that direct the
wavelength into another fiber. Switches with 256 incoming fibers and same number
of outgoing fibers have been successfully tested and employed.

Analogy
To understand the working of switch, consider a room with many windows and a
movable mirror inside. On manipulating the mirror, the sunlight streams through a
window could be reflected off the desired window.
Advantages :

1. Fast
No opto-electronic conversion, so the entire process lasts a few milliseconds, fast
enough for the most demanding switching applications.

2. Size
Each mirror in one MEMS switch is half a millimeter in diameter, about the size of the
head of a pin. Mirrors rest one millimeter apart and all 256- mirrors are fabricated on a
2.5 centimeter-square piece of silicon. The entire switch is about the size of a grape-
fruit –32 times denser than an electronic switch.
3. Power reduction
With no processing, or opto-electronic conversion, these switches provide a 300-fold
reduction in power consumption over electronic switches.

4. Economical
Standard silicon circuit manufacturing processors make the technology cost effective.

5. Stability
Silicon microns afford greater stability than if the mirrors were fabricated from metal.

6. Accurate
Use of silicon fabrication technology results in stiffer mirrors that are less prone to
drifting out of alignment and which are robust, long lived and scalable to large number
of devices on wafer. Software control algorithms let the individual elements
manipulated precisely.

7. Larger Switches
The design of mirror-arrays uses one mirror for input and one for output. Coupled with
the VLSI technique, they promote building of much larger switches .
 “THERMO-OPTIC SWITCH”

The MEMS is not the only way to produce an optical switch architecture that uses many
small and inexpensive components to control the flow of light from input to output. One
interesting approach is to use what are known as Thermo-optical waveguides.
Waveguides can be built by the some standard process used to make integrated circuits
and so like “fibers on a chip”. Waveguides have a core and cladding made of glass with
differing indices of refraction, just like normal fiber optic cables.
The basic Thermo-optical switching element has an input waveguide and two possible
output waveguides. In between there are two short, internal waveguides that first split
the input light and then couple the two internal waveguides together again. The
recombined light would proceed down the “default” output waveguide. But thermo-
optical effect makes it possible to use this coupling of the light as a switching element.

Working
The general principle of thermo-optical switching element is shown in the figure. An
input light wave is split onto two separate waveguides. If no heat is applied to the lower
branch in the figure, the coupler will output the waveform on to the waveguide labelled
output#1 in the figure. The figure shows the heating element activated, and a slightly
different phase induced into the waveform on the lower branch. So the output light
wave does not take the default waveguide but ends upon the waveguide labelled
output#2 instead.
Advantages
Because they can be built on a common material substrate like silicon, waveguides tend
to be small and inexpensive, and they can be manufactured in large batches. The
substrates, called wafers, can serve as platforms to attach lasers and detectors that
would enable transmission or receipt of optical pulses that represent individual bits.
Integration of various components could lead to photonic integrated circuit, a
miniaturized version of the components that populate physics laboratories, one reason
the waveguide technology is sometimes called SILICON OPTICAL BENCH

The general principle of thermo-optical switching elements

 “BUBBLE SWITCH”

Construction and Working

The switch consist of a silica waveguide with arrays of intersecting light pipes that from
a mesh. A small hole sits at a point where these light pipes intersect. It contains an
index-matching fluid (one whose index of refraction is the same as the silica). So if no
bubble is present at the junction, the light proceeds down the default waveguide path. If
a bubble of fluid is present at the junction, the light is shifted onto the second output
waveguide. The bubble act as a mirror that reflects the light wave to another branch of
the switching element An ink-jet printing head underneath can blow a bubble into the
hole, causing light to bend and move into another waveguide. But if no bubble is present,
the light proceeds Straight. That this switch works at all is a testament to the
extraordinary sophistication of the fluid technology behind printers.

The general principle of the bubble optical switch


 “LIQUID CRYSTAL SWITCH”

Even more people are familiar with the liquid crystal displays found in digital watches
and some forms of computer output devices than are familiar with inkjet printers.
Liquid crystals can also be used as a basis for optical switches as well. When an electrical
field is applied to the liquid crystal, the molecules line up and so can become opaque.
The liquid crystal switches rely on a change in the polarization of optical signals with the
application of electrical voltage to make a switching element. Because the liquid crystal
molecules are so long and thin, they will let only light of a particular orientation pass
through the liquid crystal.
Liquid crystal switching elements are built with two active components, the cell and the
displacer. The liquid crystal cell is formed by placing the liquid crystals between two
plates of glass. The glass is coated with an oxide material that conducts electricity and is
also transparent. The glass plate form the electrodes of the cell portion of the switching
element. The main function of the cell is to reorient the polarized light entering the cell
as required. The displacer is a composite crystal that directs the polarized light leaving
the cell. Light polarized in one direction is directed to one output waveguide by the
displacer, while light polarized at a 90 degree angle is directed to a second output
waveguide.
Working
The upper portion of the figure shows the path of a light wave when no voltage is
applied to the cell. Input light of arbitrary polarization lines up with the default
polarization orientation of the liquid crystals inside the cell. The displacer also has a
default orientation and the light emerges as shown in the figure. The lower portion
of the figure shows the path of a light wave when voltage is applied to the cell. Note
that the liquid crystals in the cell and those in the displacer both change their
orientation under the influence of the voltage. The polarized light now takes the
second output path.

The general structure of the liquid crystal switching element

 “NON-LINEAR OPTICAL SWITCH”

Another type of optical switch takes advantage of the way of the refractive index of glass
changes as the intensity of light varies. Most of the optical phenomena in everyday life
are linear. If more light is shined on a mirror, the surface reflects more of the incident
light and the imaged room appears brighter.
A non-linear optical effect, however, changes the material properties through which the
light travels. Mirror becomes transparent when more light is shined on it. Glass optical
fibers experience non-linear effects, some of which can be used to design very fast
switching elements, capable of changing their state in a femtosecond (quadrillionth of a
second time scale). Consider a non-linear optical loop mirror, a type of interferometer in
which two light beams interact.
In the mirror a fiber splitter divides an incoming beam. In one instance each segment
travels through the loop in opposite directions recombines after completing the circle
and exist on the same fiber on which it entered the loop. In cases, though, after the two
beams split, an additional beam is send down one side of the loop but not the other. The
intensity of light produced by the interaction of the coincident beams changes the index
of refraction in the fiber, which in turn changes the phase of the light. The recombined
signal with its altered phase, exits out a separate output fiber.
In general, non-linear optical switching requires the use of very short optical pulses
that contain sufficient power to elicit nonlinear effects from the glass in the fiber. An
optical amplifier incorporated into the switch, however, can reduce the threshold at
which these non-linear effects occur. For the purpose of switching the intensity
dependent phase change induced by the silica fiber itself could be used as the non-
linearity. The pulse traversing the fiber loop clockwise is amplified by an EDFA
shortly after it leaves the directional coupler. This configuration is called Non-linear
Amplifying Loop Mirror (NALM). The amplified pulse has higher intensity and
undergoes a larger phase shift on traversing the loop compared to the unamplified
pulse. Although non-linear switches have yet to reach commercial development, the
technology shows promise for the future.
 ADVANCEMENTS IN OPTICAL SWITCHES

Companies Producing Optical Switches

The market of optical switches is dominated by four companies, namely Lucent, Nortel,
Alcatel and Cisco, with the first two holding 50% of the market share. Besides the
companies mentioned above and within the Technologies section, here are some other
companies worth noting.
Ciena Corporation developed one of the first DWDM systems, and produces switches for
both regional, metropolitan and long haul carrier networks. Its recent advances in its
"MultiWave CoreStream" products has gained industry attention by enabling optical
systems to perform at 16 Tb/s.
The first all-optical switch was produced by Corvis Corportion, and was called the
"Corvis Optical Switch". The company has been able to gain other technological
breakthroughs such as the ability to transmit signals over 20,000 miles without the need
to regenerate signals. Many companies have chosen to take advantages of the potential
that optical switches
Trellis Photonics has come up with a "Intelligent Lambda Switch" which uses hologram
technology to reflect specific wavelengths of light, using an array of tiny crystals. The
technology is immensely scalable, with Trellis proposing a to develop 3840 x 3840 port
switch, with no moving parts and a crystallite structure which is 95 percent efficient.

Future of the Technology

Most believes that internet traffic is currently overwhelmed by the immense number of
people who try to access it every day. A growing demand for video conferencing and
audio will also challenge the data capacities and bandwidth of networks in the future.
Optical Networks is the clear solution, with experiments demonstrating that data rates
of 400 Gb/s can be achieved using DWDM technologies. 
The future of Optical Switching is bright for the industry, which is set to grow to $6bn in
a few years time. With the evolution of an AON, equipment and managerial costs will be
lowered and efficiency will be increased in the network.
With the new GMPLS standard coming into place, companies are able to truly design
networks and systems that are able to fully utilize the power of optical networks while
consumers will be able to enjoy high data rates, without bottlenecks.
However, until all-optical switches develop a level of intelligence matching that of an electro-
optical switch, both technologies will continue to be used by all sectors of the industry.

The Fastest Optical Switch

To date, the speed of optical switches is limited by the properties of the underlying
materials, but not by the speed of light. Now scientists from COPS at the University of
Twente and the FOM-Institute Amolf in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and the Institute
for Nanoscience and Cryogenics (CEA/INAC) in Grenoble in France have managed to
switch-on and switch-off a semiconductor optical cavity within a world-record short
time of less than 1 picosecond, or one millionth of a millionth second. The results are
published online on April 22 in the leading American journal Applied Physics Letters,
and are expected to yield ultrafast optical data communication, tiny on-chip light
sources and lasers, and perhaps even switches for quantum bits of information.
In optics, cavities are widely used for their ability to store light in a volume in space for a
particular duration in time. A generic cavity consists of two mirrors separated by a
length of transparent material. In the cavity light bounces back and forth between the
mirrors. Since light is an electromagnetic wave, it appears that only waves whose
wavelength (or color) matches the cavity length can exist in the cavity. This is the result
of constructive interference where crests and valleys of many waves coincide, and
therefore add up to a high intensity. As a result, the allowed waves resonate to form a
standing wave in the cavity, as shown in Figure 1.
Light does not circulate indefinitely inside a cavity, since on every round-trip a little bit
of light energy leaks out. Thus light is stored during a cavity storage time. The light
waves that escape from the cavity to the right in Figure 1 are selectively transmitted. All
other colors of light are reflected from the front of the cavity. Hence, Figure 1 illustrates
the popular filter function of a cavity, since from incident white light with many colors
only one color is selectively transmitted to the right.

Dept. of ECE SVIT 1

 CONCLUSION

Photonic packet – switched networks offer the potential of realizing packet-

switchednetworks with much higher capacities than may be possible with electronic
packet-switched networks. However, significant advances in technology are needed to
make them practical, and there are some significant roadblocks to overcome, such as he
lock of economical optical buffering and the difficulty of propagating very high speed
signals at tens and hundreds of gigabits/second over any significant distances of optical
fiber. There is a need for compact soliton light sources. At this time, fast optical switches
have relatively high losses, including polarization-dependent losses, and are not
amenable to integration, which is essential to realize large switches. Temperature
dependence of individual components can also be a significant problem when
multiplexing, demultiplexing, or synchronizing signals at such high bit rates.
 REFERENCE

Books:
Rajiv Kumar, “Optical Switching”, Telecommunications, Nov-Dec 2002.
Walter Goralski, “Optical Networking and WDM”, Tata Mc Grawhill
edition.
Rajiv Ramaswami, Kumar N Sivarajan – “Optical Networks”.

Web Pages:
www.lightwave.ee.columbia.edu
www.journals.elsvier.com/optical-switching-networking
www.technav.ieee.org/tag/1265/optical-switching
www.phy.duke.edu/research/photon/qelectron/proj/switch