Embodiments of present invention provide an optical signal transportation system. The system includes a first and a second optical line protection (OLP) node; a working signal transmission medium and a protection signal transmission medium between the first and second OLP nodes providing transportation paths for an optical signal from the first OLP node to the second OLP node; and at least one digital dispersion compensation module (DDCM) connected to at least one of the working and protection signal transmission media inside the second OLP node, wherein the DDCM includes a plurality of dispersion compensation units (DCUs) with each DCU being capable of providing either a positive or a negative dispersion selected by an optical switch to the optical signal, and wherein the DDCM is capable of providing the optical signal a total dispersion determined by the optical switch of each of the plurality of DCUs.

A switch module includes a switch integrated circuit (IC), a silicon photonics chips, and an interface having removably coupled first side and second side. The first side includes a lens array optically coupled to a SiP chip and the second side includes a connector having a plurality of planar lightwave circuits (PLCs) optically coupled to another lens array.

An optical device in which crosstalk due to scattering is reduced includes an optical port array having at least one optical input for receiving an optical beam and at least one optical output. The input and outputs extend along a common axis. A dispersion element receives the optical beam from the optical input and spatially separates the optical beam into a plurality of wavelength components. A focusing element focuses the plurality of wavelength components and a programmable optical phase modulator receives the focused plurality of wavelength components. The modulator is configured to steer the wavelength components to a selected one of the optical outputs. The programmable optical phase modulator is oriented with respect to the optical port array so that an axis along which the optical beam is steered is non-coincident with the common axis along which the input and outputs extend.

Embodiments of present invention provide a digital dispersion compensation module. The digital dispersion compensation module includes a multi-port optical circulator; and a plurality of dispersion compensation units connected to the multi-port optical circulator, wherein at least one of the plurality of dispersion compensation units includes a fiber-bragg grating (FBG) having a first port and a second port; and an optical switch being capable of selectively connecting to one of the first port and the second port of the FBG, wherein the at least one of the plurality of dispersion compensation units is adapted to provide a positive dispersion to an optical signal, from the multi-port optical circulator, when the optical switch connects to the first port of the FBG and is adapted to provide a negative dispersion to the optical signal when the optical switch connects to the second port of the FBG.

An optical access network comprises an optical network unit having a first port for connecting to a first optical link, a second port for connecting to a second optical link and an optical source. The optical source is arranged to generate a first optical signal, to transmit the first optical signal via the first port, to receive an optical seed signal via the first port and to amplify the optical seed signal. The optical seed signal has a narrower bandwidth compared to the first optical signal. A modulator is arranged to modulate the amplified optical seed signal with upstream data to form an upstream optical signal and to transmit the upstream optical signal via the second port. A polarisation modifier can modify polarisation of the first optical signal.

In general, techniques are described for automatically configuring fiber cross-connects between customers of an interconnection facility. In some examples, a programmable network platform for an interconnection facility exposes an interface by which customers of the interconnection system provider may request fiber cross-connects to other customers of the interconnection system provider. The programmable network platform may, in response to a request for a fiber cross-connect, configure an optical switch fabric of the interconnection facility network infrastructure to create a fiber cross-connect between the demarcation points for the customers to be interconnected.

An apparatus comprising a first tunable transmitter array comprising a first tunable transmitter and a second tunable transmitter and a cyclic array waveguide grating (AWG) wavelength router coupled to the first tunable transmitter array, wherein the cyclic AWG wavelength router comprises a plurality of input ports and a plurality of output ports, wherein the cyclic AWG wavelength router is configured to receive a first optical signal emitted from a first tunable transmitter via a first input port of the plurality of input ports, receive a second optical signal emitted from a second tunable transmitter via the first input port of the plurality of input ports, and route the first optical signal and the second optical signal to the output ports dependent on one or more wavelengths used to encode the first optical signal and the second optical signal.