In this doctoral thesis work an optical packet switching system designed as a physical platform for the next generation networks is presented. Discussions and demonstrations presented in this work include a full description of the node design as well as the integration process of the optoelectronic and photonic systems that compose a viable network element, an optical packet switching node. In this context, the optical label switching paradigm allows to achieve a unified multi-service platform with effective and agile utilization of the available bandwidth for the support of voice, data and multimedia services conveyed on IP packets. In particular, the optical switching nodes with label swapping capabilities including wavelength routing switching fabrics and parallel label processing allow the forwarding of asynchronous variable length packets, burst and circuits. On the other hand, by exploiting the wavelength, time and space domains, the contention resolution can be solved without relying on store and forward techniques associated with large buffer requirements presented on the conventional electronic routers. Moreover, in this doctoral thesis two architectures have been demonstrated in order to solve the packet contention in the node as well as a scheme of traffic shaping which allows regulating the packet transmission and creating forwarding equivalent classes with the possibility to incorporate priority to the transported packets and run priority based routing. Beside the experimental demonstrations of these characteristics, the results of the simulation work which assess the particularities of the node in a network environment are also presented. Overall, both the experimental and simulation results of the optical packet switching node show a promising performance for the support of data communications and multimedia applications in a photonic platform with packets switched directly at the optical layer.