Optical switching in ultra compact integrated photonic systems

"Optical switch for HAMR For HAMR, as well as the soon-to-be commercially launched on-wafer lasers (OWLs), it is important that the laser can be switched on quickly enough. Each disc in the hard drive completes over X revolutions every second, and it must switch off and on again to avoid erasure of system information stored on so-called 'wedges' - system markers, which

contain information required for the disc's operation. Currently this is done by switching the laser off and on, but this comes with the drawbacks of unstable operation during the temperature ramp due to thermal mode hopping. Designing a separate optical switch would allow stable heating of the NFT and a faster

thermal ramp, as well as freeing up laser design parameters "