Core and Metro Networks - Chapter 4: Enabling Technologies

The management and deployment of efficient networks, particularly for broadband services, is the result of many brilliant inventions and discoveries in the optical and telecommunication fields. This chapter discusses the overall basic point-to-point fiber optic transmission system: the optical transmitters, the optical receivers, the fiber optic cable, the optical amplifiers (OAs), the optical filters, and multiplexers. It introduces some information about the characteristics of laser diodes (LDs) used in directly modulated optical transmitters and the electronic circuits to drive them. A brief description of the various components used in optical transmission, such as lasers and light-emitting diodes (LEDs), is also provided.