Design of an optical communication system

Abstract

Over the past few decades, optical communication systems have been evolving at an unprecedented rate. Due to this, many articles have been written and published, providing information about the principles, the different components, losses as well as nonlinear effects in an optical communication system. Most of these articles have been written by independent authors or organisations, focusing only on their area of expertise. These individual papers often lack cross referencing, and support from research institutions. One might therefore question the integrity of these papers. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a compiled guide to the principles of an optical communication systems, which includes sources of attenuation, dispersion and nonlinear effects. Comparisons between the different categories of components and an example on link and cost budgeting are also included in this paper. Information published in this paper have been thoroughly cross referenced with other sources of information available on the internet, and only after having been deemed accurate are they published in this paper. The primary target of this paper are junior engineers and young network architects. However, engineers of all levels may find some useful points in this paper.