title: All-optical crossbar switch using wavelength division multiplexing and vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers.
abstract: A design for an all-optical crossbar network utilizing wavelength-tunable vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) technology and a combination of free-space optics and compact optical waveguides is presented. Polymer waveguides route the optical signals from a spatially distributed array of processors to a central free-space optical crossbar, producing a passive, all-optical, fully connected crossbar network directly from processor to processor. The analyzed network could, relatively inexpensively, connect local clusters of tightly integrated processors. In addition, it is also believed that such a network could be extended, with wavelength reuse, to connect much larger numbers of processors in a multicluster network.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Webb
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Louri