Patent ID: 7024115

Claim:
An apparatus for self-routing an optical packet, comprising: one or more input ports and two or more output ports, optical packets entered from predetermined one of the input ports being outputted from predetermined one of the output ports; copying unit for copying the optical packets entered from the predetermined input port; first electric converting unit for converting one of the optical packets copied by the optical packet copying unit into an electric packet; address information extracting unit for extracting address information regarding the predetermined output port for outputting the entered optical packets from the packet converted into the electric packet by the first electric converting unit; control light generating unit for generating a predetermined control light based on the address information extracted by the address information extracting unit; delaying unit for delaying the other of the optical packets copied by the optical packet copying unit for a predetermined time; and route switching unit for switching a route of the optical packet delayed by the delaying unit based on the control light generated by the control light generating unit, wherein based on the control light generated by the control light generating unit, the route switching unit changes a refractive index on the route of the optical packet delayed by the optical packet delaying unit, refracts the delayed optical packet by a predetermined angle, and switches the route of the delayed optical packet.