A Rack-Mounted All-Optical Packet-Switching System Using A Terahertz Optical Asymmetric Demultiplexer (Toad)

qWe introduce a novel all-optical packet-switching system using a terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer (TOAD) based on optical time-division multiplexing (OTDM). Ultra-fast packet switching is performed without undergoing optical-to-electronic conversion. An optical packet at 10 Gb/ps is generated with a high -definition video signal. All-optical packet-level clock extraction for synchronization of the switch node is performed using a modified TOAD. The extracted packet-level clock is used for detecting the header and the payload data. By integrating the above all-optical processors, we set up a rack-mounted all-optical packet-switching system and successfully demonstrate exchanging the video signals from the source to the destination. (c) 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.