All-optical header recogniser for pure DPSK optical packets

A novel low power and asynchronous all-optical header recogniser for pure DPSK packets based on narrow filtering and optical correlators is demonstrated. Experimental results show the recognition of two different packet headers at 12.5 Gbit/s at two distinct outputs. This concept can be extended to distinguish a larger number of headers at distinct outputs, to operate at higher bit rate and can be used in devising an all-optical packet switch.