Compact header processing circuit for optical DPSK packets

By means of only one SOA a compact all-optical circuit that simultaneously extracts the header information and produces a sequence of multiwavelength coloured pulses from the DPSK packets is demonstrated. Combined with an optical demultiplexer, this realises a highly scalable all-optical header processor based on time-to-wavelength conversion. Experimental results demonstrate operation on packets with eight different DPSK headers at 10Gbit/s. The system requires low optical power, can potentially operate at high speed, is asynchronous and suitable for photonic integration in a single chip.