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CRC Press eBooks

Slow Light Buffers for Packet Switching

Jacob B. Khurgin, R.S. Tucker

Published Oct 8, 2018• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Packet switches or routers are key items of Internet infrastructure. Routers orchestrate the movement of Internet protocol (IP) packets through the network, and ensure that each packet is forwarded from its source to its correct destination. In today’s network, routers are highly sophisticated electronic systems, based on powerful electronic processing, switching, and buffering technologies [1,2]. Incoming packets arrive at the import ports of a router via optical fiber links and are converted to electronic form before entering the router. This conversion is achieved using optical-to-electronic (O/E) converters located at the inputs to the router. Similarly, outgoing packets from the router pass through E/O converters before being launched onto the next optical fiber transmission link in the network.

DOI
10.1201/9781315219059-27

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Packet switches or routers are key items of Internet infrastructure. Routers orchestrate the movement of Internet protocol (IP) packets through the network, and ensure that each packet is forwarded from its source to its correct destination. In today’s network, routers are highly sophisticated electronic systems, based on powerful electronic processing, switching, and buffering technologies [1,2]. Incoming packets arrive at the import ports of a router via optical fiber links and are converted to electronic form before entering the router. This conversion is achieved using optical-to-electronic (O/E) converters located at the inputs to the router. Similarly, outgoing packets from the router pass through E/O converters before being launched onto the next optical fiber transmission link in the network.
Packet switching has emerged as a promising networking technique capable of supporting a wide range of communications services, such as voice, video, image and data.1,2 However, implementation of this technique at optical carrier frequencies, especially at the communication wavelengths, to fully utilize the wide transmission bandwidth offered by fiber optic technologies remains a challenge. Impediments to the development includes: i) the inability to rapidly analyze temporal optical information contained in the header of each packet for efficient routing, ii) rapid data processing and buffering at the communication wavelengths. Most optical switches proposed earlier suffer from either insufficient memory capacity for storing reference information, slow processing speed for routing at required packet rates, or the requirement of wavelength conversions.
Optical buffers are devices which can store optical signals for a period of time and could be valuable tools for applications such as optical storage, optical packet switching and all-optical signal processing providing the storage functionality in the optical domain, thus avoiding unwanted opto-electronic and eletro-optical conversions. During the last twenty years, there have been proposed many approaches for the implementation of optical buffers. The most straightforward scheme is the use of a fiber spool playing the role of a long-time optical delay line which requires either direct or indirect amplitude modulation to maintain the bit timing [1]. Other interesting techniques referring to optical buffering are slow-light [2], temporal solitons in optical cavities [3], excitability properties of optical devices [4] and photonic crystal nanocavities [5].
The ability to manipulate the speed of light has recently become one of the most exciting emergent topics in optics. There are several experimental demonstrations showing the capability to slow down light more than six orders of magnitude in a variety of media, ranging from atomic vapor, solid state crystal, to semiconductors. These results have led to intensive research into new materials, devices, and system studies that examine their impact to new applications. It is believed that we are on the verge of a dramatic change in the way we envision and construct communication, processing and control systems. One direct application of slow and fast light devices is in the area of communications. One grand challenge remaining in information technology today is to store and buffer optical signals directly in optical format. As such, optical signals must be converted to electronic signals to route, switch, or be processed. This resulted in significant latencies and traffic congestions in current networks. In addition, keeping the data in optical domain during the routing process can greatly reduce the power, complexity and size of the routers. To this end, a controllable optical delay line can effectively function as an optical buffer, and the storage is proportional to the variability of the group velocity. In addition to optical buffers, slow and fast light devices can be used as tunable true-time delay elements in microwave photonics, which are important for remotely controlling phased array antenna. Other novel applications include nonlinear optics, optical signal processing, and quantum information processing. There are various approaches that can be used to vary the optical group velocity. Ultraslow or fast group velocity may result from a large material dispersion, waveguide dispersion, or both. In this paper, the authors provide a review of recent progress of slow and fast light using semiconductor devices. Specifically, they will discuss results obtained using semiconductor quantum-well/quantum-dot absorber and optical amplifiers. Slow and fast light are controllable electrically by changing the bias current or voltage as well as optically by changing the pump laser intensity and wavelength. Delay-bandwidth tradeoff and other figures of merits are analyzed
Slow- and fast-light is the control of the velocity of light in a medium by light. As a fascinating new field in physics there is a fundamental interest on this effect on the one side, but on the other side there exist a lot of practical applications for telecommunication and information systems. Among these are optical signal processing, the radio frequency-photonics, nonlinear optics and spectroscopy in time domain. Furthermore, the slow- and fast-light effect can be seen as a key technology for optical delay lines, buffers, equalizers and synchronizers in packed switched networks. To realize the effect there are different methods and material systems possible. Beside these especially the nonlinear effect of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is of special interest because it has several advantages. This article gives an overview about the fundamentals and limits of the slow-and fast-light effect in general and based on the SBS in optical fibers. Some experimental results which were achieved so far are shown.