Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, receiving a first optical signal from a first optical network via a first port of the wavelength converter, receiving a second optical signal from a second optical network via a second port of the wavelength converter, modulating the first optical signal with the second light signal to generate a third optical signal, eliminating the first light signal from the third optical signal to generate a fourth optical signal, and transmitting the fourth optical signal through the second optical network. The first optical signal can include a first digital signal modulated onto a first light signal of a first wavelength, the second optical signal can include a second light signal can include a second wavelength different from the first wavelength, and the fourth optical signal can include the first digital signal modulated onto the second light signal. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Embodiments of this application provide a wavelength conversion system and a wavelength conversion method. Specifically, the wavelength conversion system includes a first wavelength conversion module, a second wavelength conversion module, and a third wavelength conversion module. The first wavelength conversion module and the third wavelength conversion module are configured to perform cross-band wavelength conversion on input optical signals, and the second wavelength conversion module is configured to perform intra-band wavelength conversion on an input optical signal. In different scenarios, at least one wavelength conversion module may be selected from the foregoing three wavelength conversion modules according to actual requirements, to perform wavelength conversion, so that both intra-band conversion of any wavelength and cross-band conversion of any wavelength can be implemented. Therefore, the wavelength conversion system provided in this application can implement conversion of any wavelength in a wide spectrum range, to meet a requirement of a future wide-spectrum communication system.

A wavelength cross connect device includes: a wavelength band switching unit configured to receive wavelength multiplexed signal beams each having been transmitted in multiple bands in optical transmission lines each including one or more optical fibers, the wavelength multiplexed signal beams each including multiplexed optical signals of distinct wavelength bands, perform wavelength band conversion on each of the wavelength multiplexed signal beams so as to convert the wavelength bands of the optical signals multiplexed in the wavelength multiplexed signal beam, and output the converted wavelength multiplexed signal beams; and a WXC unit including input-side WSSes that respectively split and output the wavelength multiplexed signal beams output from the wavelength band switching unit, and output-side WSSes mesh-connected to the input-side WSSes. The WXC unit inputs the split wavelength multiplexed signal beams to the output-side WSSes while performing rerouting and outputs the rerouted wavelength multiplexed signal beams to output transmission lines.

An optical communication device processes a WDM signal in a WDM transmission system that uses a first wavelength band and a second wavelength band. A wavelength filter extracts a first WDM signal allocated in the first wavelength band and a second WDM signal allocated in the second wavelength band from a WDM signal received from first node. An optical signal branched from the first WDM signal is guided to an access network and a remaining optical signal that is not branched from the first WDM signal is guided to second node. An optical signal branched from the second WDM signal is guided to the access network via a wavelength converter and a remaining optical signal that is not branched from the second WDM signal is guided to the second node. The wavelength converter converts wavelengths from the second wavelength band to a third wave length band.

Aspects of the invention relate to an optical switch, a method of operating an optical switch, and a system comprising an optical switch. An optical switch includes an input for receiving an optical data input and an optical address input. The optical switch further includes an output for outputting an optical data output. The optical switch additionally includes a first non-linear optical medium, where the first non-linear optical medium is arranged to combine the optical data input and the optical address input to generate the optical data output. A frequency of the optical data output is dependent on a frequency of the optical data input and a frequency of the optical address input.