Multicast-Enabling Optical Switch Design Employing Si Buffering and Routing Elements

We demonstrate experimentally an optical switch architecture that employs μm-silicon-on-insulator (SOI)-based circuitry for both buffering and routing purposes and operates with 10-Gb/s optical packets in both uniand multi-cast switching forwarding modes. It comprises a hybrid broadcast-and-select (BS)/wavelength-routed architecture, with the BS layout being responsible for identifying the desired cluster of outgoing ports, while the wavelength-routed switch part forwards then the data to the specific outgoing port. Contention resolution at the BS switch part is offered through an μm-SOI integrated optical delay line bank and wavelength-routing is realized by means of a μm-SOI 3 × 3 echelle grating router, while semiconductor optical amplifier Mach-Zehnder interferometers are employed for wavelength conversion purposes. The switch architecture has been experimentally validated with 10-Gb/s optical data packets for both uniand multicasting operation, revealing error-free performance with c5-dB power penalty.