Optical Wavelength-Selective Switch With A Bank Of Wavelength Convertors

A method, comprising:

• optically de-multiplexing light incident on an optical input of an optical wavelength-selective switch such that the incident light of each optical wavelength-channel of a sequence of non-overlapping optical wavelength channels is directed to a different optical output of the optical wavelength-selective switch;
• and
• wherein the optically de-multiplexing comprises:
• in an optical wavelength-converter, wavelength-converting a first part of the incident light on one of the optical wavelength-channels and redirecting the wavelength-converted first part to a first of the optical outputs and
• in the same optical wavelength-converter, subsequently wavelength-converting a second later part of the incident light on a different second of the optical wavelength-channels and redirecting the wavelength-converted second later part to a different one of the optical outputs.

A method, comprising:

• in an optical wavelength-selective switch, optically multiplexing a plurality of optical data streams received at corresponding optical inputs of the optical wavelength-selective switch;
• and
• wherein the optically multiplexing includes wavelength-converting optical carriers carrying some of the received optical data streams in optical wavelength-converters during a first period;
• and
• wherein the optically multiplexing includes wavelength-converting optical carriers carrying some of the received optical data streams in the optical wavelength-converters during a subsequent second period such that at least, one of the optical wavelength-converters operates on the optical data streams received at different ones of the optical inputs in the first and second periods.