Implementation of coarse wavelength division multiplexing multi-wavelength routing switch core for storage area networks

With an increasing demand on storage devices in network enterprises, storage area networks (SANs) have attracted significant attention and are currently considered as one of the most important network elements in the next generation optical Internet. An optical switch fabric capable of multicast transmission and multiple wavelength operation corresponding to a SAN´s growth is critical, since SANs will soon suffer from data bottlenecks and cost inflation because of limited switching capabilities within pure electronics. The authors present and demonstrate a reconfigurable shutter-based free-space optical switching core capable of multicast transmission using multiple wavelengths per-fibre for use in optical SANs. The switch architecture, operation mechanism and the design of key components are described. New optical materials are utilised to raise the switching speed, and ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) or transparent lanthanum-modified lead zirconate titanate (PLZT) have been compared. The optical performance of an implemented crossbar switch prototype is evaluated through a proposed node architecture constructed with a transceiver-based test-bed.