Apparatus, systems, and methods for nonblocking optical switching

An optical network, comprising:

• a nonblocking optical switch comprising:
• a substrate;
• a plurality of input ports fabricated in the substrate to receive a plurality of input optical beams;
• a plurality of interconnected Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs), in optical communication with the plurality of input ports, to perform an arbitrary uniform transformation of the plurality of input optical beams so as to generate a plurality of output optical beams;
• and
• a plurality of output ports, in optical communication with the plurality of interconnected MZIs, to output the plurality of output optical beams;
• a plurality of computer servers, each computer server in the plurality of computer servers comprising:
• an input interface optically coupled to a corresponding output port in the plurality of output ports;
• and
• an output interface optically coupled to a corresponding input port in the plurality of input ports;
• and
• a controller, operably coupled to the plurality of computers and the nonblocking optical switch, to control communication between a first computer server in the plurality of computer servers and a second computer server in the plurality of computer servers via the nonblocking optical switch, further comprising:
• a first phase shifter disposed in an arm of a first MZI of the plurality of MZIs;
• and
• a second phase shifter in optical communication with an output of the first MZI,
• wherein the controller is configured to control a setting of the first phase shifter and a setting of the second phase shifter so as to cause the nonblocking optical switch to direct data from the first computer server in the plurality of computer servers to the second computer server in the plurality of computer servers.