Demonstration of Colored Optical Interconnects and Implementation of a 2 × 2 Optical Crossbar Switch with Bistable Diode Laser Amplifiers

Bistable diode laser amplifiers have the lowest switching energy of any optical switching devices. Single and double beam usable gains in excess of 50 and 250 respectively have been demonstrated, which implies very large fan out capabilities. These devices have also been shown to be cascadable and can be operated at rates approaching 1 Gbit/s. We have used four of these devices to implement a 2 × 2 generalized nonblocking, optical crossbar switch. Any of the inputs can be connected with any of the outputs. In addition, any of the input channels can be recovered from any particular output channel using the concept of colored optical interconnects.