Networking Analysis of Photonics Integrated Multiband WSS Based ROADM Architecture

Abstract

Due to increasing traffic demand, the current optical transport infrastructure is experiencing capacity problems. Spa-tial Division Multiplexing (SDM) and Bandwidth Division Mul-tiplexing (BDM) have emerged as potential solutions to increase the capacity of the network infrastructure. In this paper, a novel modular photonic integrated multiband wavelength selective switch (WSS) in a reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexer (ROADM) architecture is proposed. This proposed WSS can operate over a wide spectral range, including C+ L+S bands, and is potentially scalable to a large number of output fibers and routed channels while maintaining a small footprint. We investigated the network performance of the proposed multiband WSS switching structure in the Spain-E topology network and performed a detailed comparison for the SDM and BDM sce-narios. In comparison to the SDM approach, which requires the deployment of additional fibers, the results show that the cost-effective BDM scenario can utilize the capacity better without installing the new fiber infrastructure or using dark fibers.