To get a feel for what fiberoptic communications is doing for (and to) the optoelectronics industry, simply look at the growth of the Optical Society of America's Optical Fiber Communication conference (OFC). Last year's show grew 60% in exhibits and a correspondingly large amount in the number of technical papers over the year before; this year, OFC 2001 (March 17-22, Anaheim, CA) promises a similar jump in size.
The show's technical program includes a plenary session, short courses, workshops, tutorials, oral presentations, and poster papers, while the exhibit hall will be filled with more than 800 companies showing their wares. The makeup of the exhibitors will be an interesting mix of large, established communications companies, small outfits devoted exclusively to fiberoptic devices, and traditional optoelectronics makers branching out into this fast-growing field (see figure).
The plenary session will feature speakers from Telcordia Technology (Morristown, NJ) and Norwest Venture Partners (Palo Alto, CA)—a combination that happens to neatly illustrate the marriage of big business and small venture-funded start-ups that is feeding the growth of this industry. An award will be presented to Tatsuo Izawa, president and chief executive officer of NTT Electronics Corp. (Tokyo, Japan), for contributions to vapor-phase axial deposition for optical-fiber fabrication and pioneer work in silica-based planar-lightwave devices.
At the heart of OFC 2001 are the technical papers. There will be many exciting presentations in the areas of novel fibers and fiber amplifiers, fiber and waveguide components, high-performance optoelectronic devices, advances in transmission systems, network elements and subsystems, next-generation access and backbone networks, and emerging commercial applications.
Sessions on Raman amplification will include a discussion on fundamental noise limits in broadband Raman amplifiers (Cambridge University; Cambridge, England), a paper describing a Raman amplifier with high differential gain over the 1650-nm passband (Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd.; Osaka, Japan), and a presentation on the impact of nonlinear pump interactions on broadband distributed Raman amplification (Siemens AG; Munich, Germany).
Semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) are another hot topic. A 40-GHz all-optical shift register with semiconductor optical amplifiers for switching and feedback will be presented by researchers at Corning Research Centre (Ipswich, England), while a comparison of switching windows of an all-optical 160-Gbit/s demultiplexer with base data rates of 10 and 40 Gbit/s will be given by scientists at the Technical University of Berlin and the Heinrich-Hertz Institut (both of Berlin, Germany).
A session on fiber gratings and poling will include an invited paper on dispersion-free fiber Bragg gratings given by researchers at the University of Southampton and Southampton Photonics (both Southampton, England), and Nortel Networks (London, England). Large-bandwidth, highly-efficient mode coupling using long-period gratings in dispersion-tailored fibers will be described by scientists at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs (Murray Hill, NJ).
Dispersion compensation is an important subject for high-data-rate and long-haul fiberoptic systems. Chromatic and polarization-mode-dispersion compensation using spectral holography will be covered in a paper stemming from research at the University of Colorado-Boulder, while a paper on the properties of a non-silica microstructured optical fiber designed to guide light at 5 µm will be given by the fiber's creators from the University of Southampton. Universal conditions for n2 estimation of dispersion-compensated fiber, investigated both theoretically and experimentally, will be described by researchers from NTT Electronics (Tokyo, Japan).
Papers on fiber amplifiers and lasers will include one given by collaborators from IMRA America (Ann Arbor, MI), Bath University (Bath, England), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) on wavelength-tunable soliton generation in the 1400- to 1600-nm region using a ytterbium fiber laser. Researchers from HighWave Optical Technologies (Lannion, France) will outline a new theoretical model of ytterbium-doped double-clad fiber for laser applications. A session on unrepeatered transmission—the realm of the hero experiment—will include the description of 40-Gbit/s return-to-zero unrepeatered transmission over 252 km of fiber using Raman amplification, done by researchers at the Heinrich-Hertz Institut (Berlin, Germany), and a presentation on 32 x 40-Gbit/sec (1.28 Tbit/s) unrepeatered transmission using a fiber-effective-area managed distributed Raman amplification system described by a group at Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (Tokyo, Japan).
Undoubtedly, major advances in fiberoptic components and systems will be introduced at OFC 2001. In just one example of last year's innovations announced at OFC, an all-optical switch developed by Agilent Technologies (Palo Alto, CA) used inkjet technology to quickly form total-internal-reflecting gas bubbles, resulting in switching with no moving mechanical parts. This year, a perusal of the OFC 2001 technical program may give an inkling of the next flashy new device. On the other hand—perhaps as a result of delayed results by researchers, or stealth tactics by marketers—the next big thing may come as a total surprise.
John Wallace | Senior Technical Editor (1998-2022)
John Wallace was with Laser Focus World for nearly 25 years, retiring in late June 2022. He obtained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and physics at Rutgers University and a master's in optical engineering at the University of Rochester. Before becoming an editor, John worked as an engineer at RCA, Exxon, Eastman Kodak, and GCA Corporation.