scalability and energy efficiency are key issues in data centers imposing tight constraints on the networking infrastructure connecting the servers . optical interconnection mitigates electronic limitations but the additional flexibility offered by wdm and datarate across a data center interconnection network requires architectural design , photonic technologies , and operating strategies be selected and optimized to meet power consumption requirements . multi - plane architectures based upon space - wavelength domain architectures have been proposed to overcome scalability limitations . it would be beneficial to extend space and time switching domains with the wavelength domain for additional capacity to increase throughput as well as providing same electro - optic interface . accordingly , the inventors have established space - time domain interconnection network architectures with wavelength domain overlay overcoming power consumption issues , especially at low utilization , by exploiting all - optical implementations with active elements which act simultaneously as a switch and an amplifier , and the possibility to remain in an idle state when unused .