Technologies For Large-Scale Optical Switching: Recent Advances And Future Prospects

摘要

For the past decade, the explosive growth of Internet data communication, together with the ever-increasing traffic demand for traditional voice service, has fueled the rapid development of optical communication systems. While the aggregate traffic demand is largely met by the deployment of DWDM technologies and the increasing data rates toward 40 Gb/s, the current optical communication system has also evolved into a complicated multi-wavelength system, which asks for many innovative technologies for realizing its vast capacities and promises. One such greatly desired network element is a large-scale optical cross-connect (OXC) in the core network to facilitate optical layer networking at the wavelength level. In recent years a variety of technologies have been studied as potential candidates. Many advances have been made, and many lessons have been learned. In this paper, we will discuss the architectural and performance requirements for OXC, and analyze various optical switching technologies. Particularly we will focus on the micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) technology that has demonstrated vast promises for large-scale OXCs.