Get PDF Email Share Share with Facebook Tweet This Post on reddit Share with LinkedIn Add to CiteULike Add to Mendeley Add to BibSonomy Get Citation Copy Citation Text A. D. Ellis, D. Cotter, P. Gunning, R. J. Manning, T. Widdowson, I. D. Phillips, D. G. Moodie, A. E. Kelly, D. Pitcher, J. K. Lucek, D. Nesset, and R. Kashyap, "Approaches to asynchronous ultrafast optical networks," in Ultrafast Electronics and Optoelectronics, J. Bowers and W. Knox, eds., Vol. 28 of OSA Trends in Optics and Photonics (Optica Publishing Group, 1999), paper UThA4. Export Citation BibTex Endnote (RIS) HTML Plain Text Citation alert Save article

We review progress of technologies and systems for ultra high speed optical networks based on ultra high speed optical processing in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOA's). Wavelength conversion and regenerative wavelength conversion are discussed. The results illustrate the potential for both wavelength conversion and high speed signal regeneration to be carried out in the optical domain, using technologies suited to volume manufacture. The use of these technologies in combination with WDM should have a significant impact on the number of regenerators required to form a realistic all optical network layer.

Error free operation of all 10 independently modulated channels in a 100 Gbit/s OTDM system is demonstrated. Electroabsorption modulators are used to extract 10 Gbit/s channels from the 100 Gbit/s data stream, the highest speed reported for such a device.

The authors describe a 40 Gbit/s optical-TDMA LAN establishing 2.5Gbit/s interconnections with fast setup between computer workstations across 300 m of installed blown-fibre. Only one optical pulse source is required for the entire LAN.

The authors demonstrate the first error free operation of 100 Gbit/s wavelength conversion employing cross-gain modulation in a semiconductor optical amplifier. A near transform limited non-return-to-zero data stream is generated at the device output.

We show that electroabsorption modulators (EAMs) can be used as the basis of serial-to-parallel and parallel-to-serial convertors, the latter by demonstrating the use of an EAM to extract a 10 Gbit/s channel from a 100 Gbit/s serial bit-stream. We envisage that a further stage of serialisation or parallelisation would be carried out in the electrical domain at the transmitter and receiver respectively to fit in with the requirements of the backplane.

The authors demonstrate the use of an electroabsorption modulator to select a 2.5 Gbit/s channel from a 40 Gbit/s TDMA data stream. The channel selector is synchronised by means of a distributed optical clock.

Short electrical pulses from an impulse generator derived from a distributed optical clock were used to drive an electroabsorption modulator to select a 2.5 Gbit/s data channel from a 40 Gbit/s optical TDMA data stream.

We demonstrate an optical TDMA LAN with 40 Gbit/s capacity that interconnects computer workstations over installed blown fibre. The LAN is 300 metres long and uses separate fibres within the same cable for clock and data

The authors report the use of a packaged, integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometer as a channel selector in a 40-Gbit/s (16 x 2.5 Gbit/s) optical TDMA LAN which is currently being used to interconnect high-end computer workstations, To the authors knowledge this is the first application of an all-optical switch in a computer network.