Roadmap of optical communications

Abstract

Lightwave communications is a necessity for the information age. Optical links provide enormous bandwidth, and the optical fiber is the only medium that can meet the modern society's needs for transporting massive amounts of data over long distances. Applications range from global highcapacity networks, which constitute the backbone of the internet, to the massively parallel interconnects that provide data connectivity inside datacenters and supercomputers. Optical communications is a diverse and rapidly changing field, where experts in photonics, communications, electronics, and signal processing work side by side to meet the ever-increasing demands for higher capacity, lower cost, and lower energy consumption, while adapting the system design to novel services and technologies. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of this rich research field, Journal of Optics has invited 16 researchers, each a world-leading expert in their respective subfields, to contribute a section to this invited review article, summarizing their views on state-of-the-art and future developments in optical communications.

10‐Channel Mode (de)multiplexer with Dual Polarizations

“…Furthermore, these multiplexing approaches have independent degrees of freedom and can be used simultaneously to form a hybrid multiplexing technology, so that the capacity of an optical communication system increases even to Peta-bit/s. [6][7][8] Optical multiplexers and demultiplexers are one of the most important elements in any multiplexed optical interconnects/networks. Silicon photonics has attracted much attention as a very promising platform for the realization of on-chip (de)multiplexers, because of its advantages resulting from the leveraging of CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) processes for large volume and high yield manufacture.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) is one of the most successful technologies, and uses different wavelength-channels to carry different signals in a single optical fiber/waveguide simultaneously. [1] In order to…”

Introductory Chapter: The Path to the Future

“…The annual IP traic is now measured in Exabyte. In order to understand this Optical Communication Technologygrowth, Figure 1 shows the past, present, and the predicted global Internet traic according to Cisco's statistics [1,2].…”

“…However, this race for ever beter performance does not stop here. In the upcoming years, developments in several areas of optical communication from hardware, software (algorithms), signal processing to networks and emerging technologies [2] will be the target of much atention from academia and industry.…”

Improvement of the Quantum Dot-in-a-Well (QDWELL) Laser and Amplifier Performance under the Optical Injection

“…[1]. These new applications generate a giant data traffic which requires the time sensitive analysis and data processing at high-performance computing infrastructures (HPC) and the data storage, transport, and exchange in datacenters (DC) [1].…”