Shared-by-wavelength-switches: a node architecture using small optical switches and shared wavelength converters

Wavelength converters can significantly improve the blocking performance of all-optical networks. The existing node architectures require large optical switches for sharing the wavelength converters. This letter proposes a new node architecture called shared-by-wavelength-switches . This node architecture requires significantly smaller and cheaper optical switches for sharing the wavelength converters while it gives nearly the same blocking performance as the existing node architectures