Rapidly switching all-optical packet routing system with optical-label swapping incorporating tunable wavelength conversion and a uniform-loss cyclic frequency AWGR

This letter discusses an experimental demonstration of a rapidly switching all-optical packet routing system with optical-label switching and all-optical label-swapping capabilities. The optical routing system optically extracts the subcarrier optical-label content, compares it against the forwarding table, makes packet forwarding and label-swapping decisions, and forward the packet to the desired output with a newly updated subcarrier optical label. The packet switching fabric included a combination of rapidly tunable wavelength conversion and a uniform-loss cyclic frequency 8 x 8 arrayed waveguide grating router. The packet routing system achieved 600-ps switching time and 250-ns forwarding decision time. Accumulated packet bit-error-rate measurements confirm the successful error-free packet routing with all-optical label-swapping.