Japan team produces 1Tb/s optical switch
A research team at Japan-based Mitsubishi Electric has developed a III-V optical device suitable for 1 Tb/s data transmission, according to the Japanese newspaper, Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
Optical exchanges operating at these extremely high switching speeds could in principle handle data throughput equivalent to 25 films in just one second. Practical versions of the switch featuring stronger signal outputs and other improvements will be available in 2008, claims the report.
The development of the switch, which is fabricated from a 50-layer superlattice of alternating AlGaAs and AlAs layers, was one of several programs coordinated by the Femtosecond Technology Research Association (FESTA). Details of FESTA research activities can be found at: http://www.festa.or.jp.
According to FESTA the very fast switching rates exploit either "ultrafast relaxation phenomena" or "giant nonlinear optical phenomena".
Other topics in FESTA s research program include developing devices such as mode-locked semiconductor lasers with Tb/s repetition rates, semiconductor pulse-compressing light sources, and epitaxial techniques to control the site and size of quantum dots.
