Self-routing of wavelength packets using an all-optical wavelength shifter and QPSK subcarrier routing control headers

We demonstrate a novel wavelength-router that directs self-routing optical packets, containing microwave subcarrier-multiplexed control information, from an input wavelength-path to one of four destination wavelength-paths. The router incorporates (1) an all-optical wavelength shifter, based on cross-gain compression of a semiconductor optical amplifier, and (2) a low-speed electronic control-header processor. Each packet is comprised of concurrently transmitted 1-Gb/s NRZ baseband payload data and a 50-Mb/s control header, QPSK-encoded onto a 1.5-GHz subcarrier. We show 10/sup -9/ BER results of packets routed to each of the four wavelength-paths. The maximum wavelength shift is 23 nm, and the inter-packet guard time is 20 ns.