All-Optical Label/Payload Separation at 40 Gb/s

We demonstrate an all-optical label/payload separation circuit implemented with hybridly integrated semiconductor-optical-amplifier-based Mach-Zehnder switches. It is shown to operate error-free with 40-Gb/s variable length data packets containing 2
⁷
-1 pseudorandom bit sequence and short guardbands between them. The circuit requires only the data packets as input and its complexity does not increase with label length