A new family of space/wavelength/time spread three-dimensional optical code for OCDMA networks

A new family of space/wavelength/time spread three-dimensional (3-D) optical codes for optical code-division multiple-access (OCDMA) networks has been proposed. Two types of 3-D codes have been constructed: 3-D codes with single pulse per plane and 3-D codes with multiple pulses per plane. Both codes are based on the prime sequence algorithm and have shown improved performance compared to the previously proposed two-dimensional (2-D) prime code. Effective implementation of the 3-D code has also been proposed. In order to eliminate the requirement of fiber ribbons and multiple star couplers in space/wavelength/time spread 3-D code based optical networks, a wavelength/sup 2//time scheme has been suggested, in which the periodic property of an arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) is used. It has been shown that the system performance can be maximized for given resources with a proper choice of the wavelength/sup 2//time scheme. Due to the improved performance of the 3-D code and the effective architecture of the wavelength/sup 2//time scheme, the feasibility of the OCDMA network is much enhanced.