Abstract

The wide bandwidth of photonic components and the high-speed capabilities of nonlinear devices, such as optical switches, optical gates, and optical frequency converters, open up the possibility of photonic packet switches with terabit-per-second throughput. There have been some experimental demonstrations of photonic packet switching, but a number of issues, such as buffering, contention resolution and amplifier noise accumulation, remain as obstacles to the practical implementation of large switches. This tutorial gives an overview of the operating principles of photonic fast packet switching, with particular attention to key functions, such as switching and routing technologies, synchronization and timing issues, and approaches to optical buffering.

© 1995 Optical Society of America