Continuously Tunable Optical Buffering at 40 Gb/s for Optical Packet Switching Networks

All-pass, wavelength-selective, slowlight optical buffers using cascaded micro-ring resonator filters are theoretically and experimentally studied in the context of optical packet switching router architectures. Two optical buffers fabricated in high-index contrast silica technology are compared: an 8-ring buffer with narrow resonances for wavelength selective delay and a 32-ring buffer for distortion-free delay at 10 and 40 Gb/s. Accurate measurements and configurations of the transmission of the buffers allow for precise simulations that accurately predict pattern dependent distortions, signal integrity and performance extrapolation to higher data rates. Continuously tunable delays are demonstrated up to 8 bits with minimal distortion.