Demonstration of stable wavelength switching on a fast tunable laser transmitter

We describe a new technique to investigate continuous wavelength switching between 32 ITU channels in a tunable laser transmitter by switching the laser once every microsecond. We examine the effect of different switching schedules on the switching of the laser, an important issue for commercial switch fabrics for optical packet routing. Switching to all 32 channels of the laser is characterized in terms of a "packet-loss rate" (PLR) due to wavelength switching. PLRs are studied as a function of the switching-time window for a laser to tune to an ITU channel. Error-free wavelength switching in less than 50 ns is demonstrated for 26 hours.