Simultaneous all-optical packet-header replacement and wavelength shifting for a dynamically-reconfigurable WDM network

We experimentally demonstrate a method of simultaneous all-optical header replacement and wavelength shifting. These functions, important in a dynamically-reconfigurable WDM network, are realized by using cross-gain compression in a semiconductor optical amplifier, and by using three-level modulation of a probe laser only when the header bits require changing. We simultaneously replace the 8-bit header of a 1-Gb/s packet and wavelength-shift the entire packet by 19 nm. A receiver sensitivity of -27 dBm at 10/sup -9/ BER is measured when using a 416-bit NRZ data packet. Our approach requires no guard bits and allows both the header and data to be at the same bit rate and wavelength.<>