Broadcast-and-select switching system based on optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM) technology

This paper presents large capacity switching systems for a local network using the broadcast-and-select (B&S) architecture. The B&S switching system, based on optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM), can provide several hundreds of Gbit/s by using a nonlinear optical switch as the time-channel selector. Moreover, the combination of OTDM and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) can realize throughputs over Tbit/s. In experiments, first, all-optical selection from a 51.2-Gbit/s data-stream to yield a 160-Mbit/s data-channel is demonstrated for a B&S OTDM switching system. Second, all-optical selection from a 25.6-Gbit/s x 2 (51.2-Gbit/s) WDM data-stream to yield a 160-Mbit/s data-channel is demonstrated for a B&S OTDM and WDM switching system. Finally, the number of optical amplifiers that one user has to share in the B&S OTDM switching system is discussed.