Proposal of all-optical wavelength-selective switching using waveguide-type Raman amplifiers and 3-dB couplers

We propose a new optical switch that can enable wavelength-selective high-speed switching for applications to photonic wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) Internet protocol (IP) packet routing. The switch utilizes characteristics of waveguide-type Raman amplifiers and 3-dB couplers, and so it operates all-optically at a few tens of picosecond or faster speed. The operation of the switch is studied by coupled-mode theory and is verified numerically using a beam-propagation method (BPM). As a result, we found that optical waves having arbitrary wavelengths among those of incident WDM waves are amplified and switched when the amplification rate of each waveguide-type Raman amplifier is set to the proper value by pump wave injection. Moreover, the dynamic range over 30 dB was also obtained from the simulation results of the switch.