Towards all-optically packet switched cross-connects

We discuss strategies towards all-optical packet switched cross-connects. A key component is an alloptical packet switch. We present a 1x2 all-optical packet switch. The optical packet headers are processed by using a SLALOM structure. The processed header information is stored by using an all-optical flip-flop memory. The packet payload consists of Manchester encoded non-return to zero amplitude modulated data bits.