Optical channel power stability in transparent optical network using large-scale photonic crossconnects and automatic gain control EDFAs

This paper describes detailed experimental results of optical channel power stability measurements in a transparent optical mesh network configured with large-scale (144 times 144) photonic crossconnect switches fabricated using 3D MEMS technology, L-band erbium-doped fiber amplifiers with a high-speed automatic gain control circuit, and 100 km length dispersion-shifted fibers with dispersion compensators. The scale of the WDM link between nodes ranges from 100 to 300 km to simulate a realistic long-haul network. The measurement results demonstrate that stable operation of a fully flexible transparent optical network is feasible using those state of the art technologies.