All-optical control and future opportunities for ultra high speed transmission on optical fibres

摘要

The advent of optical amplifiers has generated a new approach to optical communications systems design, not only is it possible to overcome loss limits amplifiers have also opened up the area pf all-optical control. This paper will identify some opportunities, using fibre nonlinearities, for enabling ultrafast all-optical networks with data rates of 10-100 Gbit/s. At the heart of these concepts is the nonlinear interaction of the optical data bits with the fibre both as the transmission medium and as the element in nonlinear all-optical processor.This concept will include optical soiitons where dispersion and nonlinearity act in harmony to provide stable non-distorting pulses (the data bits).In the following we will present fundamental concepts in optical switching and processing using nonlinear fibre devices - in particular the Nonlinear Optical Loop Mirror (NOLM) and explore the potential of soiitons in terrestrial networks. These concepts apply naturally to high data rate OTDM systems but do not exclude the possibility of multiplexing by wavelength or polarisation for increase capacity.