High speed optical packet routing demonstration of a vertical coupler crosspoint space switch array

Summary form only given. Future all-optical networks require high-speed routing of packets. Current commercial optical space switches typically have switching times in the order of milliseconds, which is unsuitable for this kind of application. Other devices based on semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) gates offer nanosecond switch times. These devices are essentially based on broadcast-block-combine architectures, which are chip-area hungry when integrated and difficult to upscale. They could also be power hungry because several gates have to be switched on to establish a route.