Abstract

Most near-term photonic switching systems exploit optical devices for their large bandwidth but still require electronics for memory, logic, and control functions. Hence there is great interest in monolithically integrating electronics and photonics¹². For example, packet header interpretation and routing can be acheived with an optoelectronic circuit consisting of integrated photodetector, transistor electronics, and space-division switches. If, as an overlay to the space-division fabric, wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) is used, then switching capacity can be tremendously increased. Even greater WDM network flexiblity is attained if there is some means for channel reuse such as wavelength conversion.

© 1993 Optical Society of America