A flexible optical packet compression and routing scheme by using an active vertical coupler-based optical crosspoint switch matrix [Topics in Optical Communications]

We experimentally demonstrate all-optical packet compression for an RZ payload up to 40 Gb/s and a label at 155 Mb/s, based on a recirculating buffer with one individual optical crosspoint switch. The packet can be flexibly switched, dropped, time slot interchanged up to 9 time slots, and compressed up to 4 packets in one time slot. Back-to-back BER performance of the 4 times compressed packet was measured with only 1.8 dB of power penalty. By using variable fiber delay lines, this scheme can be further extended to applications for variable length/time slot packet routing and compression.