Naoya WADA^* and Fumito KUBOTA

National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, 4-2-1, Nukui-Kita, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8795, Japan

(Received December 16, 2003; Accepted January 14, 2004)

Ultra-high speed all-optical label processing methods are proposed and experimentally demonstrated. These methods dramatically increase the label processing capability. Optical packet switch (OPS) systems and networks based on OPS nodes are expressed as an application of optical processing technologies. First, the 40 Gbit/s/port OPS prototype with all-optical label processor, optical switch, optical buffer, and electronic scheduler is described. The feasibility of OPS networks is verified by experimental demonstrations.

Key words: networks, optical communications, optical label processing, optical packet switching, optical buffering

^*E-mail address: wada@crl.go.jp