Transmissive Star Coupler based Experimental Dense WDM-LANs interconnected via a Central Node

For future access- and local area networks the simultaneous transmission of many high bitrate channels will be necessary. A promising candidate to fulfill this requirement is the dense WDM (DWDM) technique. DWDM-LANs with different network topologies have been proposed and were investigated [e.g. 1, 2, 31 as well as the all-optical interconnection of LA" with reflective star couplers 141. This paper reports the in [5] proposed all-optical interlink of modified transmissive star coupler based experimental DWDM-LANs with isolated expansion ports and a channel spacing of 9 GHz. Each LAN has four fully engineered, microprocessor controlled and absolute frequency stabilized subscriber stations. As well heterodyne as direct detection receivers with fixed and tunable filters and optical preamplifiers are implemented.