Ultrafast All-Optical Serial-to-Parallel Conversion and Its Application to Optical Label Processing

A novel scheme for all-optical serial-to-parallel conversion (SPC) is proposed for label recognition of ultrafast asynchronous burst optical packets. Compact SP converter modules were developed using a fiber array or a surfaceemitting planar lightwave circuit, and 1-Tbit/s and 40-Gbit/s SPC for 16-bit optical packets is demonstrated using the modules. The key device in the converter is a spin-polarized surface-reflection all-optical switch (LOTOS) with an ultrafast switching time (250 fs) and an extremely high on/off ratio (>30 dB). Label recognition of 40-Gbit/s 16-bit burst-mode optical packets is experimentally confirmed using an optical clock-pulse generator and a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) electronics circuit as well as the all-optical SP converter. 1 x 4 self-routing is also demonstrated using 2-channel control signals generated from the CMOS circuit according to a routing table.