a set of optical transceivers comprising optical transmitters and optical receivers; and

an embedded optical interconnect mesh operatively associated with the set of optical transceivers and structured to enable a network architecture in which each optical transceiver in the set of optical transceivers can communicate with each other optical transceiver in the set of optical transceivers via the embedded optical interconnect mesh and which comprises at least one of the following network architectures: a star network architecture; a bus/broadcast network architecture; and a ring network architecture, the embedded optical interconnect mesh comprising:

a reflecting optical element; and

a bi-directional coupler comprising:

a plurality of ports on a first side, the plurality of ports comprising ports that are operatively associated with the optical transmitters and ports that are operatively associated with the optical receivers; and

at least one port on a second side which is operatively associated with the reflecting optical element,

wherein light transmitted by each of the optical transmitters via a port on the first side is reflected by the reflecting optical element and distributed among all the optical receivers via the at least one port on the second side, and via the ports on the first side that are operatively associated with the optical receivers, thereby enabling said network architecture.