All optical cross-connect system using erbium-doped fiber-based optical switching unit

Abstract

A novel bidirectional 2x2 optical switch technique, based on the conventional erbium-doped fibers (EDFs) with an operation of pumped or unpumped power level, is proposed and demonstrated experimentally, By using the amplification and absorption function of EDFs and a simply architecture design, the input signals can be switched to a suitable position. The response time of wavelength switching will approach about 2 ms. Moreover, the behavior and system performance of the proposed configuration also have been studied.