Monolithic optical equalizer array for wavelength-reusable and topology-reconfigurable WDM local area networks

Optical local-area networks (LANs) and metropolitan-area networks (MANs) based on wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) are becoming the mainstream networking choice for building terabit capacity lightwave networks. WDM provides an effective means for using the vast bandwidth of a single-mode fiber by allocating channel bandwidth in proportional to the processing speed of the user nodes in a multiple-access environment. In this paper we propose a new network design based on the principle of wavelength-routing through the use of monolithic optical equalizer array (MOEA) which is capable of wavelength-reuse and topology-reconfiguration without resorting to tunable devices