Novel Ethernet based optical local area networks for computer interconnection

In this paper we present new optical local area networks for fiber-to-the-desk application. Presented networks are expected to bring a solution for having optical fibers all the way to computers. To bring the overall implementation costs down we have based our networks on short-wavelength optical components, multimode optical fibers, multimode polymer-based integrated-optic devices and widely used fast Ethernet protocol. A new physical layer device that can be attached to the existing network interface card has been developed and implemented such that computers can exchange data using our new networks.