Traveling-wave electrode boosts switch performance

Scientists at the Heinrich Hert¥Institute (HHI, Berlin, Germany) have developed an indium phosphide-based optical switch that operates at rates u¥to 40 GHz. Optical switches are set to become an important element in fiberoptic data-transmission networks; using optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM), such switches will interconnect signals from "slow" lines (at 2.5 Gbits/s, for example) to the fast, 40-100-Gbits/s transmission lines currently being developed.