Abstract

Optical Time Domain Multiplexing (OTDM) has emerged as a versatile candidate to reach single carrier rates beyond the electronically bottlenecks up to 320 Gbit/s resp. 640 Gbit/s. To fully exploit these high carrier rates in a network enviromnent new challenges are met in wavelength conversion and channel demultiplexing. To enable network functionalities, ultrafast optical Add-Drop Multiplexers (OADM’s) are a key necessity required to allow for the extraction and insertion of lower bit rate data channels (10 resp. 40 Gbit/s) at the various network nodes. A key element is fonned by an ultrafast optical gate providing a time window for the desired channel, thereby suppressing the remaining channels sufficiently. Ultrafast gating can be obtained with a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA). In this paper we will review the latest results on high speed wavelength conversion and channel demultiplexing employing a single SOA.

© 2007 IEEE