Abstract

Packet switching has emerged as a promising networking technique capable of supporting a wide range of communications services, such as voice, video, image and data.¹,² However, implementation of this technique at optical carrier frequencies, especially at the communication wavelengths, to fully utilize the wide transmission bandwidth offered by fiber optic technologies remains a challenge. Impediments to the development includes: i) the inability to rapidly analyze temporal optical information contained in the header of each packet for efficient routing, ii) rapid data processing and buffering at the communication wavelengths. Most optical switches proposed earlier suffer from either insufficient memory capacity for storing reference information, slow processing speed for routing at required packet rates, or the requirement of wavelength conversions.

© 1997 Optical Society of America