Design of a low voltage driving electro-optical switch

An electro-optical switch based on Fabry-Perot(F-P) etalon is proposed. The working principle of the F-P switch is introduced, and the structure of the F-P switch is designed. As an example, the dependences of transmittance of the F-P switch on driving voltage and wavelength are analyzed with lithium niobate crystal as the intracavity medium. The results indicate that, with the same crystal parameters, the driving voltage can be dramatically reduced for the F-P switch compared with those switches using orthogonal polarizers, and mode selection can also be achieved in this F-P switch.