Optical fiber switch using a deformable mirror for a large number of interconnects

The rapid expansion of fiber optic telecommunications networks requires complex optical switch matrix systems. We propose and demonstrate a switch concept with alignment and aberration corrections which has the potential of a 1/spl times/546 optical switch with 3 dB insertion loss and less than -30 dB crosstalk. Each switching configuration is optimized once. The parameters are memorized and each connection can then be addressed with its proper corrections.