An optical switch device and a related method for defining a topological light transport channel in a photonic lattice are provided. An exemplary optical switch device includes a photonic lattice including a photonic topological microring array comprising a plurality of site rings coupled via a plurality of anti-resonant link rings, a plurality of input light ports and a plurality of output light ports located at the plurality of site rings, wherein the plurality of input light ports and the plurality of output light ports are respectively connected by a plurality of topological light transport channels. The optical switch device is further configured such that each of the topological light transport channels is defined by a gain domain area that is produced by a corresponding patterned optical pumping beam emitted onto the photonic topological microring array.

A method and apparatus is provided for control of plural optical phase shifters in an optical device, such as a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer switch. Drive signal magnitude is set using a level setting input and is used for operating both phase shifters, which may have similar characteristics due to co-location and co-manufacture. A device state control signal selects which of the phase shifters receives the drive signal. One or more switches may be used to route the drive signal to the selected phase shifter. Separate level control circuits and state control circuits operating at different speeds may be employed. When the phase shifters are asymmetrically conducting (e.g. carrier injection) phase shifters, a bi-polar drive circuit can be employed. In this case, the phase shifters can be connected in reverse-parallel, and the drive signal polarity can be switchably reversed in order to drive a selected one of the phase shifters.

A method for manipulating an input vector is described. The method involves controlling a plurality of optical switches to obtain a nominal orientation vector or a transpose orientation vector based on a plurality of input optical signals encoding the input vector and received at the plurality of optical switches. The nominal orientation vector and the transpose orientation vector represent transposed versions of one another. A memory system comprising a first section configured to store vectors in accordance with a nominal orientation and a second section configured to store vectors in accordance with a transpose orientation. A controller stores the nominal orientation vector in the first section of the memory system or stores the transpose orientation vector in the second section of the memory system.

Optical switch trees are commonly used to route light from one input channel to multiple possible output channels one at a time. As the number of output channels increases, the number of wire-bonding pads increases and the drive electronics becomes more complicated. The optical switch tree comprises an array of optical switches arranged in a plurality of rows of optical switches, each connected by a row bus, which are connected to a first multiplexer and a common power source; and a plurality of columns of optical switches, each connected by a column bus, which are connected to a second multiplexer and a common ground. A control processor selects one of the plurality of columns of optical switches to connect to the common ground, and selects one of the plurality of rows of optical switches to connect to the common power source, thereby selecting a single optical switch in the array of optical switches to activate.

An eye tracker having a first waveguide for propagating illumination light along a first waveguide path and propagating image light reflected from at least one surface of an eye along a second waveguide path. At least one grating lamina for deflecting the illumination light out of the first waveguide path towards the eye and deflecting the image light into the second waveguide path towards a detector is disposed adjacent an optical surface of the waveguide.

A device may include a high-side electrode layer comprising a plurality of discrete electrodes. A device may include a low-side electrode layer. A device may include an electro-optic (EO) layer comprising a solid EO active material at least partially interposed between the high-side electrode layer and the low-side electrode layer, thereby forming a plurality of active cells of the EO layer. A device may include a controller, comprising: a steering request circuit structured to interpret a steering request value, a steering configuration circuit structured to determine a plurality of EO command values in response to the steering request value; and a steering implementation circuit structured to provide a plurality of voltage commands in response to the plurality of EO command values.

Provided is a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) apparatus including a plurality of switches connected in a binary tree structure, a light source and a photodetector respectively connected to a root switch provided on a root node of the binary tree structure, and a light transmission/reception optical system connected to a plurality of terminal switches provided at a plurality of terminal nodes of the binary tree structure, the light transmission/reception optical system being configured to transmit light to an outside of the LiDAR apparatus or receive light from the outside, wherein the root switch is a 2×2 switch including a first upstream side port, a second upstream side port, a first downstream side port, and a second downstream side port, and wherein the light source is connected to the first upstream side port and the photodetector is connected to the second upstream side port.

An integrated optical beam steering device includes a planar dielectric lens that collimates beams from different inputs in different directions within the lens plane. It also includes an output coupler, such as a grating or photonic crystal, that guides the collimated beams in different directions out of the lens plane. A switch matrix controls which input port is illuminated and hence the in-plane propagation direction of the collimated beam. And a tunable light source changes the wavelength to control the angle at which the collimated beam leaves the plane of the substrate. The device is very efficient, in part because the input port (and thus in-plane propagation direction) can be changed by actuating only log.sub.2 N of the N switches in the switch matrix. It can also be much simpler, smaller, and cheaper because it needs fewer control lines than a conventional optical phased array with the same resolution.

A programmable optical chip and a terminal is provided, wherein the optical chip includes: one or more first transmission paths for transmitting an optical signal in the programmable optical chip; first programmable basic devices arranged in an array; and optical IP cores, wherein the optical IP cores and the first programmable basic devices are optically coupled, and the optical IP cores are optically coupled. The optical IP cores include optical soft cores and/or optical firm cores. Each type of optical soft core includes second programmable basic devices and one or more second transmission paths for transmitting the optical signal in the optical soft core. Each type of optical firm core includes third programmable basic devices, one or more third transmission paths for transmitting the optical signal in the optical firm core, and first optical devices used to process the optical signal. In the solution of the present disclosure, operations such as programming are performed on the optical chip such that the optical chip can implement a plurality of different functions.

An optical switch has four optical ports; a first optical waveguide coupled between a first of said ports and a second of the ports; a first switch element provided between the first waveguide and a second optical waveguide that is coupled to a third of the ports; a second switch element provided between the first waveguide and a third optical waveguide that is coupled to a fourth of the ports. Each switch element has a micro-ring resonator having an active state in which it is coupled to the first waveguide and to a respective one of the second and third waveguides for optical signals at a preselected wavelength, and an inactive state in which no coupling occurs. Each switch element has a control element arranged to receive a respective control signal configured to cause it to switch the micro-ring resonator between said states.