Exploiting time-to-wavelength conversion for all-optical label processing

Abstract

We propose a novel asynchronous all-optical header processor based on time-to-wavelength conversion. It always requires only four optical functional blocks, i.e., the whole complexity does not linearly scale with the number of possible headers. The scheme is experimentally demonstrated at 10.9 Gb/s and four different headers are distinguished at four distinct outputs. The limited amount of switches (four), the low optical power operation, and the potential photonic integration of each switch in a single chip make the system highly scalable and, therefore, suitable for devising an all-optical packet switch.