Patent ID: 8867016

Claim:
A wavelength selective switch comprising: one or more optical input ports configured to receive one or more input optical beams, the one or more input optical beams having a plurality of wavelength channels; one or more optical output ports, of the one or more output optical ports being configured to receive one or more wavelength channels of the plurality of wavelength channels; a first optical wavelength dispersion element configured to separate the plurality of wavelength channels of the one or more input optical beams; a second optical wavelength dispersion element configured to combine two or more separate optical beams each having one or more different wavelengths, into a combined beam having the plurality of wavelength channels; a polarization modulator array having a plurality of polarizing modulation cells, each cell configured to independently change a polarization orientation of an optical beam passing through the cell; one or more optical components for directing optical beams corresponding to respective wavelength channels to different polarizing modulation cells; a polarization beam splitter configured to route received optical beams with different polarization to particular output paths; and one or more switch pairs, each switch pair including a second polarization modulator array and a birefringence element, each switch pair providing a separation angle between two specified polarization orientations, and wherein a number of output optical ports or a number of input optical ports N depends on the number of switch pairs M such that N=2 (M+1) .