Special Section on Photonics in Switching

The Photonics in Switching Conference was held in Florence, Italy, in September 2015. The Conference was exciting, with a large number of original works invited and presented. The Convitto della Calza cloister stimulated many fruitful discussions carried out, even when walking towards social events inside the extraordinary context of the city of Florence, with its rich history, art, and culture. All the attendees enjoyed a traditional collegial atmosphere of the Photonics in Switching Conference. Although this special section is not a proceeding of the conference, the idea for a Special Issue on this topic was devised in the program committee. The role of photonic technologies and techniques has grown in the past few decades within the optical networks scenario. At the same time, system and subsystem innovative solutions, together with novel network segments and architectures, represent the building blocks in the Internet of Things era: communication and connection everywhere, any time, at high quality, low cost, low power consumption, and low environmental impact. This is the ambition of the Photonics in Switching Conference, and this Special Section is evidence of the strong efforts that the scientific community has made in the field.