Optical Networks
Beginners' Guides -
August 02, 2001 : Optical fibers connecting locations many miles apart, and carrying information in the form of on-off flashes of laser light
Optical Fiber
Beginners' Guides -
August 02, 2001 : Very thin strands of pure silica glass through which laser light travels in an optical network
Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM)
Beginners' Guides -
August 02, 2001 : Transmitting many different colors (wavelengths) of laser light down the same optical fiber at the same time, in order to increase the amount of information that can be transferred
Formatting for Transmission
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : The conversion of data into 1s and 0s, and the different ways in which these signals can be transmitted through optical fiber
Optical Units Reference
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Multipliers, Optical Power, Gain & Loss, Wavelength & Frequency, and Bandwidth & Optical Modulation Bandwidth
Protocol Basics
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Forms of communication among network devices to enable the exchange of information
Internet Protocol (IP)
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : A network-layer protocol that puts Internet data into packets and helps them to be routed over interconnected local area networks (LANs)
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : A protocol for the swift routing of data streams, bringing improved performance and quality-of-service options to IP traffic
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM)
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : A data-link layer protocol allowing integration of voice and data with the ability to provide quality-of-service guarantees
Ethernet
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : A data-link layer protocol commonly used to transfer Internet Protocol (IP) packets over cables in local area networks (LANs)
Digital Wrappers and Forward Error Correction (FEC)
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : An encapsulation method for traffic of all protocols, allowing an optical network to be protocol transparent, its functions to be managed in an efficient manner, and its data to be transmitted more reliably
Laser Basics
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Devices giving out intense light at one specific color
Tunable Lasers
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Lasers that can be adjusted to emit one of several different wavelengths
Optical Amplification
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Boosting of an optical signal without any conversion of the light into an electrical signal
Erbium Doped-Fiber Amplifiers (EDFAs)
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Optical amplifiers made of short lengths of optical fiber doped with the element 'erbium'. A laser excites erbium ions in the fiber, which can then give their energy to optical signals passing through
Raman Amplification
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Optical amplification process throughout the actual transmission fiber in an optical network, caused by a carefully selected pump-laser wavelength scattering from atoms in the fiber and changing its wavelength to that of the optical signal
Nonlinear Effects
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : High optical powers causing various effects on signals in optical fibers, usually detrimental
Chromatic Dispersion and Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD)
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : The spreading out of light pulses in time due to different wavelengths traveling at different speeds (chromatic dispersion) or different polarization states traveling at different speeds (polarization mode dispersion)
Arrayed Waveguide Gratings (AWGs)
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Integrated optical circuits that can combine (multiplex) or separate (demultiplex) different wavelength signals in an optical network
Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs)
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Small sections of optical fiber that act like selective mirrors, only reflecting back specific wavelengths
Submarine Systems
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Optical fiber links connecting countries through the world's oceans
Optical Crossconnects
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Devices that can switch optical signals between different optical fibers, without the need for conversion to electrical signals
Advanced Fiber Types
Beginners' Guides -
August 01, 2001 : Optical fiber designed to work with, or in place of, conventional fiber in order to improve overall system performance
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