Dynamic optical networking with rapid wavelength reconfiguration is a promising capability to support the heterogeneous, bursty traffic rapidly growing in metroarea networks. A major obstacle to realizing dynamicity in the optical layer is the channel power excursions that occur due to continuously changing input conditions into gain controlled optical amplifiers. Here we present a technique of distributing an optical signal across multiple wavelengths chosen to reduce or cancel the power dynamics so that excursion-free switching can be achieved in an optically amplified transparent network. The use of variable wavelength dwell times for excursion-free switching using arbitrary wavelength pairs is presented. Spectral efficiency lost in utilizing multiple wavelengths is recovered through time-division multiplexing two signals distributed over the same wavelengths.

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We experimentally studied the performance of a delay-line interferometer-based optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) monitor that is pre-calibrated in optimal conditions for 25-Gbaud pol-muxed quadrature-amplitude-modulation (QAM) signals, when unpredicted changes outside the monitor occurred either in the transmitter or the link.

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