All-optical 2-bit header recognition and packet switching using polarization bistable VCSELs.

Abstract

We propose and evaluate an all-optical 2-bit header recognition and packet switching method using two 1.55-µm polarization bistable vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and three optical switches. Polarization bistable VCSELs acted as flip-flop devices by using AND-gate operations of the header and set pulses, together with the reset pulses. Optical packets including 40-Gb/s non-return-to-zero pseudo-random bit-sequence payloads were successfully sent to one of four ports according to the state of two bits in the headers with a 4-bit 500-Mb/s return-to-zero format. The input pulse powers were 17.2 to 31.8 dB lower than the VCSEL output power. We also examined an extension of this method to multi-bit header recognition and packet switching.