MEMS optical switch technology is one of the key technologies in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical networks. Although the 2-D MEMS optical switch technology is mature, the commonly used crossbar architecture is not amenable to building large switches. In this paper, we propose a design of 2 × 2 switching modules, and use it to build large 2-D MEMS optical switches with architecture...

An input buffer type optical switch is one of the most important switching systems. Conventionally an FIFO read-out procedure is used for the input buffer type optical switch, however, the FIFO procedure gives a head of line limit to its switching performances. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a parallel read-out procedure to the input buffer type optical switch, and to show that trans...

MEMS optical switch technology is one of the key technologies in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical networks. Although the 2-D MEMS optical switch technology is mature, the commonly used crossbar architecture is not amenable to building large switches. In this paper, we propose a design of 2 × 2 switching modules, and use it to build large 2-D MEMS optical switches with architecture...

 This work is based on the optical switch architecture proposed in [5][6] to handle variable-length packets such as IP datagrams. This optical switch is based on an AWG device to route packets and is equipped with a fiber delay-line stage as optical input buffer. Unfortunately, this switch would require considerable buffering capability to achieve acceptable performance. A possible solution, s...

We experimentally demonstrate a 160-Gb/s Ethernet 4 packet switch using an 8.6-mm-long silicon nanowire for optical 5 burst switching, based on cross phase modulation in silicon. One 6 of the four packets at the bit rate of 160 Gb/s is switched by an 7 optical control signal using a silicon based 1 × 1 all-optical packet 8 switch. Error free performance (BER < 1E-9) is achieved for the 9 switch...

The authors investigate a 1 free-space microoptical fiber switch for a large number of interconnects. The system to be studied is a reflective 4 optical system. Alignment tolerances and coupling efficiency are investigated and the benefit brought by collimating microlens arrays is reported (theoretically and experimentally). The use of microlenses enables power coupling efficiency between 3 and...

Hybrid electro-optical packet switches utilize optics in the backplane to switch optical packets from inputs to outputs on electronic line cards. The optical packets are traditionally considerably larger than minimum size IP packets. IP packets entering the switch must be formatted (segmented) and encapsulated in the optical packet format. This process is called packetisation or aggregation. Th...

Our prototype of a fully-functional Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switch validates the design of a 128 Gb/s optoelectronic ATM switch. Optoelectronics, rather than all optical componets, are used to simutaneously address all of the speci c requirements mandated by the ATM protocol. In this paper, we present the Illinois Pulsar-based Optical Interconnect (iPOINT) testbed, and present our resu...

We report on an all-optical switch that operates at low light levels. It consists of laser beams counterpropagating through a warm rubidium vapor that induce an off-axis optical pattern. A switching laser beam causes this pattern to rotate even when the power in the switching beam is much lower than the power in the pattern. The observed switching energy density is very low, suggesting that the...

Quantum scientists over the past two decades have dreamt of realizing powerful new information technologies that exploit the laws of quantum mechanics in their operation. While many approaches are being pursued, a prevailing choice consists of using single atoms and particles of light—single photons—as the fundamental building blocks of these technologies [1]. In this paradigm, one envisions th...