Progress in acousto-optic filter technology for WDM systems

Technology of the integrated acoustooptic filter has advanced remarkably over the last several years, leading to polarization diversity WDM switches, filters and switches with controllable passband shape and AOTFs with internal gain. Efforts of the ARPA-funded Optical Network Technology Consortium (ONTC) led to the successful demonstration of a WDM network which uses AOTF wavelength-routing to achieve a dynamically interconnected system of nodes.