Optical Packet Switching

摘要

Optical packet networks are networks, where the switching operations are performed optically. Since the first optical networks, the components and the networks themselves have developed rapidly. However, there are still many unsolved questions. At the moment many networks are hybrid, i.e. the network itself and a part of devices are optical, but electronics are used also. All-optical circuit switched networks become more common all the time, but the all-optical packet networks are still in the infancy, though developing fast. The main problem is the infancy of optical devices, especially the lack of optical random access memory. In this work the latest research concerning optical packet networks is reviewed.