Patent ID: 7233716

Claim:
An optical switch comprising a plurality of input/output ports arranged in parallel, first and second reflecting members, a diffraction grating unit for defining an output angle of an output light for an incident light wavelength component through diffraction, and a micromirror array, wherein the first reflecting member optically couples the input/output ports and the second reflecting member, the second reflecting member is arranged so that a reflecting face thereof is opposed to the first reflecting member, the diffraction grating unit and the micromirror array, optically couples the first reflecting member and the diffraction grating unit for input lights from the input/output ports and output lights to the input/output ports, and optically couples the diffraction grating unit and the micromirror array for wavelength component lights spectrally diffracted into wavelength components, when input lights from the input/output ports are incident via the first and second reflecting members, the diffraction grating unit outputs the wavelength component lights as the output lights, the micromirror array comprises mirrors capable of reflecting respective wavelength component lights from the diffraction grating unit and switching directions of the reflections according to an arrangement of input/output ports as output destinations, the diffraction grating unit outputs the output lights as the output lights according to an arrangement of input/output ports as output destinations based on the reflecting directions of the wavelength component lights switched in the micromirror array, and the first reflecting member and the micromirror array, which are optically coupled with the diffraction grating unit through the second reflecting member, are arranged at the same side relative to the diffraction grating unit.