Photonic packet routing based on multiwavelength label switch using multisection fiber Bragg gratings

We are developing photonic packet switching system called multi-wavelength label switching node (Ml-LSN). This is a desired system to build ultra high-speed packet switching. The Ml-LSN analyzes the label all-optically. The photonic packet switching can be achieved with a help of optical packet with a multi-wavelength label. Different from an optical cross-connect (OXC) in a wavelength routing network, the Ml-LSN inherently has fine granularity. The Ml-LSN consists of photonic forwarding (label lookup), photonic switching, electronic scheduling, and photonic buffering. We describe demonstrations of photonic packet routing using the forwarding and the photonic switching in the Ml-LS. We report recent developments in the photonic packet routing based on multi-wavelength label switch. All-optical functions, variable data rate switching, variable length packet switching, label swapping, and label merge (replacing multiple labels by a single label) are demonstrated. We describe multi-stage fiber delay line buffer architecture to compensate for gap between electronic scheduling speed and optical data rate.