Recent advances in fiber optic technology have prompted researchers to envision a future all-photonic network that is capable of supporting multiple access and services at very high bit rates. The confluence of optical transmission and optical network functions opens up new paradigms for network architectures that are enabled by emerging photonic technologies. Characteristics of these architectures and technologies that distinguish them from existing ones include: (1) networks in which the transmission of information is based on optical packets (burst-switched or packet-switched networks, with and without all-optical header recognition), (2) optical code-division multiplexing for allocating bandwidth-on-demand in bursty, asynchronous traffic environments, and (3) practical implementations for optical generation, shaping, and processing. In these all-photonic multi-access networks, any node can use a designated time slot to send a packet to any other node in the network. The bursty nature of these networks imposes new design constraints on transmitters, receivers, and optical components. We review various system and technology considerations for such networks.

David V. Plant received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Brown University, Providence, RI, in 1989. From 1989 to 1993, he was a Research Engineer with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCLA. He has been a Professor and Member of the Photonic Systems Group, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, since 1993, and the Associate Dean Research and Graduate Education since January 1, 2006.

During the 2000 to 2001 academic years, he took a leave of absence from McGill University to become the Director of Optical Integration at Accelight Networks, Pittsburgh, PA. Dr. Plant heads both federal and provincial research centres in the Information and Communications Technology sector. Specifically, he is the Director and Principal Investigator of the Centre pour les systèmes et technologies avancés en communications (www.sytacom.mcgill.ca). He is also Scientific Director and Principal Investigator of the Agile All-Photonics Networks Research Network (www.aapn.mcgill.ca). His research interests include optoelectronic-VLSI, analog circuits for communications, electro-optic switching devices, and optical network design including OCDMA, radio-over-fiber, and agile packet switched networks.

Dr. Plant received the Outstanding Departmental Teaching Award and the Faculty of Engineering Teaching Award both in 1996, and the Carrie M. Derick Award for Graduate Research Supervision and Teaching in 2004, all from McGill University. He was named an inaugural James McGill Professor in 2001, an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for 2005/06, and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America in 2005. He is also a Senior Member of the IEEE and a member of Sigma Xi.