Highly overcoupled fused taper couplers as optical switches

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Abstract
In the fabrication of an overcoupled 2 X 2 fused taper coupler, the light cycles back and forth between the output fibers as a function of the optical path length of the coupling region between the waveguides. This cycling (beat frequency) becomes extremely rapid for highly overcoupled couplers as the number of cycles per unit length of pull increases exponentially. We have fabricated couplers with several thousand cycles that are extremely sensitive to small changes in the interaction length or the refractive index. We propose the use of these overcoupled fused taper couplers as optical switches or electro-optic modulators.

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