Nonreciprocal optical circuit switching

Abstract: Directly switching optical signals outperforms conventional optoelectronic hardware in terms of cost, latency, and energy efficiency, and is expected to address the growing demand for data node capacity driven by the development of machine learning and AI technologies. Therefore, optical circuit switching (OCS) technology has piqued widespread research interest in various technical solutions, including silicon photonics. However, silicon-based integrated OCS remains constrained by challenges such as network performance and port scalability. Here we propose a magneto-optical heterogeneous integrated nonreciprocal OCS (NOCS) network based on a silicon photonics platform, achieving bidirectional full-duplex nonreciprocal transmission by programming reciprocal and nonreciprocal phase shifters. We demonstrate that compared with the existing OCS architecture, NOCS has the advantages of ultra-high reconfiguration speed, large-scale integration compatibility, and bidirectional channel isolation reducing the number of required ports. NOCS could meet the programming speed requirements of the AI backend network, or supports nonreciprocal optical switching applications without multiplexing technology.