Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation-Based Packet Generation and All-Optical Separation for Optical-Label Switching

This letter introduces a versatile modulation-format transparent optical-label switching (OLS) transmitter based on optical arbitrary waveform generation (OAWG) and all-optical label extraction. The transmitter creates OLS packets, each with a payload and a label generated by OAWG. With the use of a circulator and a fiber Bragg grating (FBG), the payload and label are simultaneously extracted from the packet. Generation and separation of a repeated 100-ps packet with a 10-bit 100-Gb/s payload and a 4-bit 40-Gb/s label in nonreturn-to-zero and return-to-zero on-off keying formats indicate the potential for future OLS packet switching networks using an OAWG-based transmitter and an FBG to remove and add labels. Retrieved spectral and temporal waveform of both the payloads and labels show clearly spectral separation and temporal overlap.