Applications in optical communications: Optical transmission of millimeter-wave signals, and, an all-optical wavelength-routed switching network

ptical communications has been revolutionizing the communications field since the 1970s due to its potential for enormous information capacity, low loss, immunity to electro-magnetic interference, and low cost. Optical communications has already improved long-distance telecommunications. More recently, optical fiber has been installed in local communication systems providing voice, video, and data services.;This dissertation discusses two future applications of optical communications. The first application is the transmission of millimeter-wave signals on optical fiber. Traditionally, the transmission of millimeter-wave signals on optical fiber has been used for military applications such as phased-array radar. The use of optical fiber as a backbone network in commercial, millimeter-wave wireless applications may become feasible and economical as technology improves and the demand for wireless services increases. The transmission of millimeter-wave signals on optical fiber is achieved here by stabilizing the mode-locked frequency, at 41 GHz, of a passively mode-locked laser using an opto-electronic phase-locked loop. This method is also used to generate short pulses at millimeter-wave frequencies. The experimental results are presented and discussed.;The second application of fiber-optics discussed in this dissertation is the use of the wavelength domain to perform routing functions in an all-optical network. All-optical networks are desirable due to transparency in data format, data wavelength, and data rate. The wavelength domain is utilized by preceding data packets with a header containing a series of digits with each digit being one of a set of available wavelengths. This header gives the desired destination address of the data packet. The header is decoded in the switching nodes of a distributed switching network as the packet is routed through the all-optical network. We refer to this type of network as an all-optical self-routed wavelength-addressable...