Survey of telecommunications applications of quantum electronics-progress with optical fiber communications

Optical transmission for high data rate telecommunications constitutes one of the most important applications of quantum electronics. The author describes the rapid development of this technology, the state of the art, and some projections for the future. In particular, the characteristics of the fiber transmission medium, the semiconductor laser sources, and the receivers are described along with the recent advances made possible by the development of practical optical amplifiers. The main challenges for the future are in development of practical broadband integrated-services digital networks and components for an all-photonic network.<
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