Meeting the need for fiber-optic transmission speed

Review current OTDMA technology, with the emphasis on optical clock recovery and time demultiplexing. Various optical switching techniques are surveyed, and they are compared by taking account of the potential feasibility of engineering implementation. The architectures for OTDMA networks are described, and we look at all-optical clock recovery schemes that are based on traveling-wave (TW) semiconductor laser amplifiers, self-pulsating laser diodes, EO switches, mode locking of a fiber ring laser, and four-wave mixing (FWM). We also review various optical switching techniques for ultrafast time demultiplexing.