Patent ID: 8139904

Claim:
A method of implementing optical deflection switching, the method comprising: directing a deactivatable tuning operation only at a specific region of a coupled optical resonator, the coupled optical resonator coupled to an input port, a first output port and a second output port, and the coupled optical resonator including at least three cascaded unit cells, wherein a first of the at least three cascaded unit cells is directly adjacent the input port and the first output port, a last of the at least three cascaded unit cells is directly adjacent the second output port, and at least one other of the at least three cascaded unit cells is disposed between the first and the last of the unit cells, not directly adjacent any of the input port or first and second output ports; wherein the tuning operation interrupts a resonant coupling between one or more of the at least three unit cells of the coupled resonator so as to cause an input optical signal from the input port to be directed from the first output port to the second output port; and the specific region comprises one of: a coupling junction between a pair of the at least three unit cells not directly adjacent any of the input port or first and second output ports; and one of the at least three unit cells not directly adjacent any of the input port or first and second output ports.