High-speed all-optical signal processing in optical communication systems

Summary form only given. The transmission capacity of the fiber is expanded by increasing both the number of wavelength channels (wavelength-division multiplexing, WDM) and the bit rate per WDM-channel (time-division multiplexing, TDM). A channel bit rate of 40 Gbit/s will soon be installed and the next generation TDM bit rate of 160 Gbit/s is under active study in several research laboratories. As electrical signal processing is not available at 160 Gbit/s today, the TDM bit rate of 160 Gbit/s requires the optical time division multiplexing (OTDM) technique. In this paper, we report on components and techniques enabling 160 Gbit/s OTDM transmission. We focus on semiconductor based devices.