1-Tb/s 16-b all-optical serial-to-parallel conversion using a surface-reflection optical switch

A novel scheme for all-optical serial-to-parallel conversion is proposed for label recognition of ultrafast burst optical packets. A compact 18-ch serial-to-parallel converter module was developed using a spin-polarized surface-reflection all-optical switch made of low-temperature grown Be-doped strained InGaAs-InAlAs multiple quantum wells. A 1-Tb/s 16-b optical packet was converted into 16 parallel slow (82-MHz rate) electrical pulses with a contrast ratio of more than 6 dB.