Investigation of optical packet routing performance of optical packet switch with optical digital/analogue-conversion-type header processor (wavelength label switch)

The dynamic routing operation of optical packets by a novel optical router consisting of an optical digital-to-analogue-conversion-type header processor, an electrically-tunable laser, a semiconductor optical amplifier-based wavelength converter, and an arrayed-waveguide grating router, is reported. A binary header is converted to the single pulse with different amplitude according to the header pattern. Wavelength routing performance assigned to the header pattern by this type of configuration was realised for the first time.