Vertical cavity surface emitting laser based optoelectronic asynchronous transfer mode switch

James R. Collington Mark P. Dames William A. Crossland Cambridge University Engineering Department Trumpington Street Cambridge CB2 1PZ United Kingdom Abstract. Large broadband asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching nodes require novel hardware solutions that could benefit from the inclusion of optical interconnect technology, since electronic solutions are limited by pin out and by the capacitance/inductance of the interconnections. We propose, analyze and demonstrate a new three stage free space optical switch that utilizes vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) for the optical interconnections, a liquid crystal spatial light modulator (SLM) as a reconfigurable shutter and relatively simple optics for fan out and fan in. A custom complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) chip is required to introduce a time delay in the optical bit stream and to drive the VCSELs. Analysis shows that the switch should be scalable to 102431024, which would require 2048 ;2 mW VCSELs. © 1999 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [S0091-3286(99)01407-5]