Optical label swapping using payload envelope detection circuits

Optical label swapping of 10-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ) labels attached to 40-Gb/s return-to-zero payloads is demonstrated using payload envelope detection (PED) circuits based on 40-Gb/s clock recovery with nanosecond locking time. The circuits generate a digital envelope signal representing the payload location without having to process the 40-Gb/s data. The low-frequency PED signal, which is generated from the recovered 40-GHz packet clock by a radio-frequency mixer, can be utilized to erase/rewrite the label through traveling-wave electroabsorption modulators. This approach does not require active timing control to erase the label. Nearly penalty-free rewriting of a new 10-Gb/s NRZ label was demonstrated.