J.K. Lucek

10 Gbit/s asynchronous digital optical regenerator

We describe the first experimental demonstration of an asynchronous digital optical regenerator. Error-free regeneration of 10-Gb/s optical packets up to 40000 bits long has been demonstrated without clock recovery. It is demonstrated that the optical nodes in this network may operate with independent clocks, within certain practical limits, offering the possibility of arbitrary mesh optical time-division multiplexing networks.

Advances in Nonlinear Optics for Information Processing and All-Optical Networking

Telecommunications networks of the future will be expected to deal with a far greater range of bandwidth-demanding services than the current limited requirements of telephony and data traffic. In order to satisfy new customer demands, network designers are likely to consider novel techniques for switching and transmission in order to fully exploit the enormous bandwidth potential of optical fibre. In this paper, we will review recent advances in the application of nonlinear optical information processing techniques to all-optical networking.

An optically programmable mode-locked laser

We demonstrate an optically mode-locked laser that generates a repetitive pattern of ultrashort pulses when driven by a repetitive pattern of optical pulses from an external source. Two modes of operation are described: in one mode of operation the generated pattern is determined directly by the driving pulse train; in the other mode it represents the result of logic operations between elements of the driving pulse train.<<ETX>>

100 Gbit/s parallel to-serial and serial to-parallel conversion using electroabsorption modulators

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.

Optical pulse pattern generation for self-synchronizing 100 Gbit/s networks

Summary form only given. This paper describes active delay line devices constructed using hybrid semiconductor/passive optical waveguide technology. The application of these devices to derivation of a timing reference pulse and all-optical header recognition and self-routing of ultrafast packages with multibit addresses is demonstrated. The basic functions required to construct an all-optical self-routing asynchronous packet-switched network are developed.

Ultrafast Networks Using High-Speed RZ Optical Pulses for Transmission, Routing and Processing

The processing power of computers is expected to increase apace for at least the next 10–15 years. Industry experts predict that by the year 2011 microprocessor chips will run at clock rates around 10 GHz and achieve processing speeds of 100,000 million instructions per second [1]. Increasingly these powerful individual machines will be connected in networks to search and retrieve remote information, recognise patterns within the information, make intelligent inferences, process and present the information to the user in easily accessible formats and with almost imperceptible delay. The crucial component of this vision is a network capable of providing bursty high-bandwidth data transfer on instantaneous demand.

Ultrafast photonic data networks

Summary form only given. Recent advances in all-optical and electro-optic switching devices allow new time-domain photonic data network concepts to be explored. Experimental results from a 100 Gbit/s self-routing packet demonstration and from a synchronous TDMA testbed will be presented.

Recent advances in photonic processing

Summary form only given. One way of catering for the high demand likely to be placed upon the capacity of telecommunication networks of the 21st century is optical time division multiplexing (OTDM). In association with these ultra-high speed optical pipes, a variety of processing schemes are required in order to facilitate the manipulation and management of the data throughout the network. At these high speeds, switching must be performed on the timescale of a few picoseconds. Therefore, all-optical photonic processing technologies will have a key role to play in performing essential routing functions.