A two-layer switch exploiting orbital angular momentum (OAM) and wavelength of the light as switching domains is presented, aiming to increase the scalability with respect to the single-layer switches. The switch is able to accept 160 optical Gaussian data inputs on a 16-channel wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) grid and direct each input signals to different output ports exploiting 10 OAMs. The optical switch is based on an integrated OAM multiplexer followed by a compact OAM demultiplexer consisting of two refractive elements. Its experimental characterization confirmed a total enabled throughput of 19.2 Tb/s, thanks to the 30 GHz bandwidth available for each port. The switching time can be lower than 1 μs. The OAM switch power consumption, solely due to the thermal tuning of the OAM emitters, since the OAM demux is passive, is 1.35 mW/Gb/s. In the proposed switching architecture the number of active components, i.e., the power consumption, scales linear with the number of ports. This is favorable in comparison with single-layer switches that cascade e.g., 2 × 2 elementary blocks to obtain large port counts, which scale with the square of the number of ports. The switch accepts input and output signals with Gaussian phase profile that propagate through optical fibers and waveguides, thus making it compatible with standard telecom devices. The suitability of the switch to support real data-traffic is proved by successfully testing it with 10G Ethernet and fiber channel over Ethernet (FCoE) data and video traffic. A possible application scenario is represented by a data-center network where the switch can be used to create a low-power consumption network parallel to the network based on standard electronic routers, to manage large traffic flows.

中文翻译：

---

基于集成模式多路复用器的10 OAM×16波长两层交换机，可处理19.2 Tb / s的数据流量

提出了一种利用轨道角动量（OAM）和光的波长作为切换域的两层开关，旨在提高相对于单层开关的可伸缩性。该交换机能够在16通道波分复用（WDM）网格上接受160个光学高斯数据输入，并利用10个OAM将每个输入信号定向到不同的输出端口。光学开关基于集成的OAM多路复用器，然后是由两个折射元件组成的紧凑型OAM多路分解器。由于每个端口都有30 GHz带宽，其实验特性证实了总启用吞吐量为19.2 Tb / s。切换时间可以小于1μs。由于OAM多路复用器是无源的，仅由于OAM发射器的热调谐而导致的OAM开关功耗为1.35 mW / Gb / s。在所提出的交换架构中，有源组件的数量（即功耗）与端口数量成线性比例关系。与将例如2×2基本块级联以获得较大的端口数（与端口数的平方成比例）的单层交换机相比，这是有利的。该开关接受具有高斯相位分布的输入和输出信号，这些信号通过光纤和波导传播，从而使其与标准电信设备兼容。通过成功地使用10G以太网和以太网光纤通道（FCoE）数据和视频流量对交换机进行测试，证明了该交换机支持真实数据流量的适用性。