Free-space–fiber hybrid distributed optical cross-connect interconnect module

We propose implementing a large-scale optical cross-connect network based on a free-space–fiber hybrid interconnect system. The free-space portion of the system is designed to handle shuffle operation of optical beams that need to intersect each other. The fiber portion is used to guide these signals to and from optical transceivers, which can be distributed at different locations. A compact and packaged prototype that handles $256\times 256$ input–output channels is demonstrated.