Abstract

The application of photonic technologies to packet switching offers large improvements in switch capacity. The wide bandwidth of photonic components and the high-speed capabilities of nonlinear devices, such as optical switches and optical gates, opens up the possibility of packet-switched networks with throughputs in the terabit-per-second range. This paper reviews recent developments in photonic fast packet switching. It provides an overview of operating principles and architectures of photonic packet switches and reviews the capabilities of key devices and components suitable for use in photonic packet-switched networks.

© 1994 Optical Society of America