Patent ID: 7126250

Claim:
Apparatus, comprising: a plurality of ports, at least one of said ports configured to be an input port and one or more of said ports configured to be output ports; a diffraction grating adapted to be optically coupled to at least two of said plurality of ports; and a mirror array adapted to be optically coupled to the diffraction grating, wherein: the mirror array comprises a frame and a plurality of rotatable elements, each rotatable element having a mirror adapted to rotate with respect to the frame; the diffraction grating is adapted to produce from a wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) signal applied to the input port a plurality of spatially separated optical signals corresponding to components of said WDM signal; each mirror in the array is adapted to receive a respective one of said spatially separated optical signals and direct the respective received signal back to the diffraction grating, which further directs said respective signal to a respective one of said output ports, wherein the respective output port to which said respective signal is directed is a function of the orientation of the respective mirror with respect to the frame; and each of said rotatable elements comprises: a cradle; a plate, having a reflective portion functioning as the respective mirror, that is rotatably coupled to the cradle along a first rotational axis, wherein (i) the plate has a footprint that extends outside of a footprint of the cradle, (ii) the frame is fixedly attached to a first substrate, and (iii) the cradle is rotatably coupled to the frame along a second rotational axis; and first and second electrodes formed at a second substrate, wherein the first substrate is attached to the second substrate such that the plate is superposed over the first electrode and the cradle is superposed over the second electrode.