Multiwavelength bidirectional optical crossconnect using fiber Bragg gratings and polarization beam splitter

We propose a multiwavelength bidirectional optical crossconnect (B-OXC) structure based on fiber Bragg gratings (FBG´s) and polarization beam splitters (PBS´s). A 2/spl times/2 B-OXC system is implemented using four pairs of short period gratings and two PBS´s, in order to experimentally evaluate the performance of the proposed B-OXC system. Loss characteristics are discussed with experimental measurements, and the bit-error rate (BER) performance, the typical channel crosstalk suppression, and the switching time are also measured.