Abstract

Optical switching nodes that are transparent to wavelength, bit-rate, and modulation format can be exploited to obtain an increased and efficient use of the available capacity. Based on a novel optical signal processing method,¹ we present and demonstrate an optically transparent add/drop node (ADN) that operates without use of a local transmitter. We show that it can be adjusted to be transparent to: the wavelength, the bitrate (partly) and, as opposed to, e.g.,² the modulation format. To our knowledge, this is the first report on a modulation format independent ADN.

© 1996 Optical Society of America