Abstract

All-optical switching using intensity-dependent refractive index in Kerr media is promising to perform ultrafast optical demultiplexing, optical routing, and logic operations that can handle ultrafast time-division-multiplexed(TDM) signals. In this paper, we propose the use of induced optical carrier frequency shift through cross-phase modulation(XPM)[1] combined with a "polarization rotation mirror" [2] to construct a novel polarization-independent optical demultiplexer and present its stable 4-port, 60 Gb/s operation. The proposed switch features multi-outputs with one operation compared with two outputs given by many other all-optical switching schemes based upon induced-phase shift.

© 1992 The Author(s)