A modular, cascadable, and self-controlled optical queue buffer is proposed, which can solve the packet contention at a 2 × 1 optical node. Controlled by incoming optical packets, the buffer can realize first-in-first-out queue buffering without the necessity of external control signals. By using optical threshold functions and wavelength converters based on semiconductor optical amplifier, the push and pop operations of packets on queue can both be achieved. In addition, preliminary experiment is carried out.

A label swapping scheme of an optical labeled signal with differential phase shift keying (DPSK) for label at 2.5 Gb/s and pulse position modulation (PPM) for payload at 40 Gb/s is demonstrated by simulation. Power penalties of ?1.8 and ?0.8 dB are achieved for both the payload and label over 80-km single mode fiber (SMF) transmission. This labeling scheme allows the use of four-wave mixing (FWM) in semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) to perform label erasure, with advantages of transparence for bit rate, high processing rate, simple architecture, and low cost. Label swapping is demonstrated with appropriate penalties of ?3.5 and 0.8 dB for PPM payload and new DPSK label, respectively. To further prove the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, label swapping in the case of using 10-Gb/s DPSK label is also investigated with the power penalties of 6 and 2 dB for PPM payload and new DPSK label.

A new optical label switching system with coherently detected implicit spectral amplitude code (SAC) labels is proposed in this letter. The implicit SAC labels are recognized using a frequency-swept local light source oscillator. Intensity modulation payloads of 625 Mb/s and 1.25 Gb/s are considered. Label and payload bit error rate (BER) performances are assessed and compared by simulations. The results reveal that, at a BER value of 10^{-9}, -32.4-dBm label received power can be obtained. In addition, 8.3-dB optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) is obtained when carrying a payload of 625 Mb/s. The label BER value hardly reaches 10^{-9} if the payload bit rate is at 1.25 Gb/s; however, a high payload bit rate only has little influence on received payload quality at a BER value of 10^{-9}. Finally, a payload of 1.25 Gb/s could obtain -28.2 dBm received power and 9.5-dB OSNR.

The architecture of and the corresponding control algorithm for a devised optical cross-connect, limitedrange wavelength converision wavelength interchangeable cross-connect (L-WIXC), are presented. The performances of L-WIXC including blocking probability, switching time, and throughput are simulated. Cost comparison with wavelength selective cross-connect (WSXC) and WIXC is calculated. Key optical parameters, such as crosstalk, eye diagram, bit error rate, and linear Q factor, are measured and discussed.

A novel assembly control algorithm named burst-size feedback adaptive assembly period (BFAAP) is proposed. The major difference between BFAAP and other similar adaptive assembly algorithms is that the control curve of BFAAP is dynamically adjusted according to the feedback of outgoing burst size. BFAAP is compared with two typical algorithms fixed assembly period (FAP) and min-burst length max-assembly period (MBMAP) in simulation in terms of burst size distribution and assembly period. Moreover, the transmission control protocol (TCP) performance over BFAAP is also considered and simulated.