Abstract

Future high-speed communications and data processing are expected to rely on all-optical space switches, that can also be used as wavelength converters, signal regenerators, multiplexers, and demultiplexers. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) configuration exploiting the capabilities of nonlinear optical waveguides or nonlinear semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAS) allows high-speed switching^1-3 between the two output-arms depending on whether the optical control signal is present or not. Usually, the strong control- and the weak data-signal counterpropagate to simplify signal separation. A bidirectional operation for the data-signal is difficult even if wavelength-filters are used due to the high power of the control-signal and fails if the two signals have the same wavelength. But future applications will require bidirectional operation.

© 1996 Optical Society of America