Abstract

Emerging serial optical communication standards such as Fiber Channel require a large optical crossbar (called a “fabric”) that routes signals in a circuit-switching manner with a few μsec switching time. The switching fabric must be able to transmit multi-gigabit per second optical signals and should be transparent to wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) protocols, and thus cannot be implemented in existing Silicon or Gallium Arsenide technology. The alternative is to use an all-optical switch which can quickly establish physical connections between fibers.

© 1993 Optical Society of America