Abstract

As bitrates in communications and computing systems continue to increase, switching components necessary for demultiplexing must operate at ultrafast speeds. Much research has recently concentrated on interferometric fiber-optic switching, and many such devices have been demonstrated as demultiplexers of ultrafast optical pulses with high switching contrasts.^1-3 The x⁽³⁾ nonlinearity of fibers is extremely weak, and although the low propagation loss permits long interaction lengths, these long lengths have been a source of severe latency that is unacceptable for systems implementation.

© 1996 Optical Society of America