A liquid-crystal switching element relying upon a segmented liquid-crystal polarization modulator, at least one frequency-dispersive grating and one or more polarization-dispersive elements, such as Wollaston prisms, to switch separate wavelength-divided signals among four optical paths.
A method and system for unambiguously detecting fiber cuts in an optical network regardless of the number of EDFAs that are located between the fiber cut and the monitor point. In accordance with our invention, the power of a marker wavelength is compared to the power of a nearby spectra
A method and apparatus providing reducing crosstalk in optical cross-connects by configuring unused switching elements into a common switch state. The optical cross-connect may be a 2.sup.N .times.2.sup.N cross-connect which includes a plurality of dilated 2.times.2 switches each hav
