Advances in nonlinear optics for information processing and all-optical networking

Telecommunications networks of the future will be expected to deal with a far greater range of bandwidth-demanding services than the current limited requirements of telephony and data traffic. In order to satisfy new customer demands, network designers are likely to consider novel techniques for switching and transmission in order to fully exploit the enormous bandwidth potential of optical fibre. In this paper, we will review recent advances in the application of nonlinear optical information processing techniques to all-optical networking.