Ultra-fast photonic packet switching with optical control.

We report the first demonstration of all-optical multi-bit address recognition at 250 Gb/s using a self-routing scheme. With bit period being only 4 ps, two address bits from each packet header were used for routing. Photonic packets can be removed(dropped) by a routing switch from network traffic at their destination. The packet-switching bit-error rate was measured to be less than 10(-9) .