Fast tunable wavelength conversion for all-optical packet switching

We demonstrate a simple scheme to achieve fast tunable wavelength conversion over a wide spectral range. The wavelength conversion is obtained by four-wave mixing in a semiconductor optical amplifier using a double-pump scheme, 2048-bit sequences at 2.5 Gb/s, incoming at a given wavelength, are alternatively converted toward two different wavelengths for a total conversion interval of 20 nm. With this method, the time needed to change the destination wavelength is much shorter than the bit duration. This feature makes any guard-time spacing between packets unnecessary. Bit-error-rate measurements show that the process occurs with negligible penalties (less than 0.3 dB).