Optical Communications

This module covers fiber optic telecommunications systems and networks, performance analysis, and improvement solutions.

Understand the physical principles and operation of the main components and transmission systems used in optical telecommunications networks.

Understand the different network topologies and know how to evaluate their performance for optical communications.

Semiconductor physics and optoelectronic components, electromagnetism, guided propagation and fiber optics.

Recommended prerequisites:

Signal processing, information theory.

Final exam

• Nonlinear phenomena resulting from light-matter interaction (7.5 hours):
  • Fundamental concepts of nonlinear optics
  • Presentation of nonlinear effects in optical communication systems:
    • Diffusion phenomena in fibers (Kerr effect, Raman scattering (SRS), Brillouin scattering (SBS), soliton propagation).
    • Other nonlinear effects: wavelength conversion, phase modulation (self-phase modulation (SPM), cross-phase modulation (XPM), four-wave mixing (FWM).

• Transmission line for optical communications (9 hours):
  • Transmission line composition (transmitter, receiver, regenerators, OLT/ONU optical module (transceiver), coherent detection
  • Information detection: eye diagram, noise calculation, electrical and optical signal-to-noise ratio, sensitivity, bit error rate (BER), jitter, forward error correction (FEC)
  • Optical modulation and demodulation and coding,
  • Loss management in optical fibers: optical budget, amplifier location, gain equalization, review of fiber amplifiers, Raman amplifier, SC amplifier.
  • Managing dispersion in fibers: overview of the issue and compensation methods.
  • Management of non-linear effects

• Networks (9 hours):
  • Network topology: long distance, terrestrial, submarine, metropolitan, local, FTTX, SDH/SONET standards
  • Point-to-point or point-to-multipoint architecture, PON, WDMPON
  • Coherent detection
  • Multiplexing: TDM, CDM, WDM, SCM, radio over fiber

CM: 25:30

• Nonlinear Fiber Optics, Govind P. Agrawal, 5th edition, Elsevier
• Fiber Optic Communication Systems, Govind P. Agrawal, 4th edition, Wiley
• Optical Fiber Communications, 4th edition, Pierre Lecoy, Lavoisier Hermes