Abstract

Header or routing-tag processing is an essential function in packet switching. At each switching node the header is decoded and the information in the header is used to route the message data to the desired destination. In this contribution we describe a new technique for header recognition in the optical domain. The technique is based on an optical-loop mirror with a semiconductor laser amplifier (SLA). The SLA in a loop-mirror configuration (SLALOM) was introduced recently.¹ As depicted in Fig. 1, the SLALOM consists of a 3-dB coupler with two arms connected to form a loop. The loop contains a SLA and a delay line with delay T. The SLALOM was operated as an optical correlator for picosecond pulses. Two pulses, separated by a time interval of τ, were fed to the input and, at the output, an optical pulse was obtained for τ = T. With a contrast ratio of 13 dB there was no output signal if |τ — T| was larger than the gain recovery time of the SLA.

© 1993 Optical Society of America