Impact of node optical architecture on the performance of optical slot switching ring networks

All-optical slotted networks rely on fast wavelength tunable lasers to achieve any-to-any communication over the same physical medium (the optical fiber). In our recently proposed optical slot switching ring network, with the introduction of the coherent technology, fast wavelength tunability may be acheived either at the transmitter, the receiver or both. Additionally, optical slot switching nodes may use a slot blocker that can block any slot on any wavelength. In this paper we investigate the impact of the optical part of the optical slot switching node, both in terms of location of the fast wavelength tunable element and on the presence of the slot blocker, on the network performance assessed in terms of latency.