All-optical header recognizer for optical packet switched networks

The increase of the internet traffic leads to future optical networks requiring tens of Tb/s of capacity. Current electronic circuit switches are limited by the scalability of the electronic switching fabrics, power consumption and dissipation in the opto- electronic conversion. All-optical packet switches may solve the bottleneck between the required capacity and the routing speed. All-optical header processing systems (AOHPS) is a key function in implementing the all-optical packet switch. The book focuses on AOPHS solutions based on nonlinear gain and index dynamics in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA). One approach is based on two-pulse correlation principles in SOAs combined with a header pre-processor for recognizing a large amount of packet headers. Another approach employs the self-induced nonlinear polarization rotation in SOAs. This has the advantage to reduce drastically the optical powers of operation. A third AOHPS employs a terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexers (TOADs), which has the advantage to be made compact and thus allows the photonic integration of the system. Finally a comparison between the different techniques is reported.