Chapter 24OPTICAL INTERCONNECTS AND SWITCHES
- 24.1 OPTICAL INTERCONNECTS
- 24.2 PASSIVE OPTICAL ROUTERS
- 24.3 PHOTONIC SWITCHES
- 24.4 PHOTONIC LOGIC GATES

The development of optical interconnects and photonic switches began in earnest in the 1980s under the aegis of Bell Laboratories, an organization created by AT&T in 1925. Bell Laboratories became part of Lucent Technologies in 1996, part of Alcatel–Lucent in 2006, and then part of Nokia in 2016.
Interconnections and switches are essential components of distributed systems such as communication systems and networks (telecom and datacom) and computing systems (computer-com). As displayed in Fig. 24.0-1, the scale of the interconnection distances in these different venues extend over a broad range: 1–100 km for telecom; 10–1000 m for datacom; and 1–1000 cm for computer-com. The interconnection ...
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