Passive shared media systems

Abstract

A passive shared media space-division photonic switching architecture with the potential for extremely high dimensionality is presented. The architecture, which resembles a collapsed network, eliminates the restrictions 2*2 switching elements impose in classical space-division switching architectures by providing a dedicated path for all input- and output-port connections on a common transmission medium. Switching between two input ports and three output ports of a space-division time-multiplexed photonic switch with 120*120 input/output port capacity was demonstrated. The aggregate throughput was 12 Gb/s.<>