Tap-and-2-Split Switch Design Based on Integrated Optics for Light-Tree Routing in WDM Networks

Abstract

Abstract-This paper presents a novel cost-effective multicastcapable optical cross connect (MC-OXC) node architecture that features both tap-and-continue and tap-and-binary-split functionality. This architecture provides an interesting balance between simplicity, power efficiency and overall wavelength consumption with respect to models based on TaC (Tap and Continue) or SaD (Split-and-Delivery). The main component of this node is a novel Tap-and-2-Split Switch (Ta2S). In this paper, we propose and analyse an implementation of this switch based on integrated optics (namely, MMI taps and MZI switches), and we characterize and compare it with other alternatives implemented with the same technology. The study shows that, thanks to the presented Ta2S design, the 2-Split Tap Continue (2STC) node scales better in terms of number of components than the other alternatives. Moreover, it is more power efficient than the SaD design and requires less wavelengths than TaC thanks to the binary split capability. On the other hand, simulation results reveal that the 2-split condition does not add a significant additional wavelength consumption in usual network topologies with respect to SaD.Index Terms-All-optical multicast routing, light-trees, multicast node architectures, splitters, wavelength routed multicast.

Thermo-optic waveguide gate switch arrays based on direct UV-written highly fluorinated low-loss photopolymer

“…Optical switches as the key component of realizing channel selection and conversion function in optical transmission network, have been widely used on the optical link layer, such as in optical cross connect (OXC), optical add-drop multiplexer (OADM), optical network monitoring, and on-chip optical interconnection [1][2][3][4][5]. With the increasing demands for low cost and high performance of the optical chips, the photonic integrated circuits (PICs)-based monolithic integrated optical devices have gradually drawn extensive attention in recent years [6][7][8].…”