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The continuous push for high-performance photonic switches is one of the mostcrucial premises for the sustainable scaling of programmable and reconfigurablephotonic circuits for a wide spectrum of applications. Large-scale photonicswitches constructed with a large number of 2$\times$2 elementary switchesimpose stringent requirements on the elementary switches. In contrast toconventional elementary switches based on mode interference or mode coupling,here we propose and realize a brand-new silicon MEMS 2$\times$2 elementaryswitch based on a split waveguide crossing (SWX) consisting of two halves. Withthis structure, the propagation direction of the incident light can bemanipulated to implement the OFF and ON states by splitting or combining thetwo halves of the SWX, respectively. More specifically, we introducerefractive-index engineering by incorporating subwavelength-tooth (SWT)structures on both reflecting facets to further reduce the excess loss in theON state. Such a unique switching mechanism features a compact footprint on astandard SOI wafer and enables excellent photonic performance with low excessloss of 0.1-0.52/0.1-0.47dB and low crosstalk of $\lt$-37/-22.5dB over anultrawide bandwidth of 1400-1700nm for the OFF/ON states in simulation, whilein experiment, excess loss of 0.15-0.52/0.42-0.66dB and crosstalk of$\lt$-45.5/-25dB over the bandwidth of 1525-1605 nm for the OFF/ON states havebeen measured.Furthermore, excellent MEMS characteristics such as near-zerosteady-state power consumption, low switching energy of sub-pJ, switching speedof {\mu}s-scale, durability beyond 10^9 switching cycles, and overall devicerobustness have been achieved. Finally, a 16$\times$16 switch using Benestopology has also been fabricated and characterized as a proof of concept,further validating the suitability of the SWX switches for large-scaleintegration.

Silicon photonic MEMS switches based on split waveguide crossings