Evolution of all-optical flip-flops and their applications in optical communications networks

Abstract : This study provides a review of all-optical flip-flops (AOFFs) technologies, and their possible experimental implementation solutions, for a variety of applications in optical communication networks. A description of the state-of-theart experimental implementations and validation testing of the technologies used in different AOFFs schemes is made, presenting to the interested reader an overview of the up to date AOFFs design schemes. Some of the research results presented in this study were performed under the EU NoE EURO-FOS project consortium. This study also provides researchers working on this topic with interesting trends that are worth considering in their own research studies.