High Spectral Density Optical Communications

CTI proposes the development of a high data rate, multi-channel communications transceiver for use in optical communications. The use of coherent receiver technology will enable the development of systems with high resistance to channel cross-talk issues.The use of remote seeding techniques will be explored to reduce the overall complexity of the system, and the generation of a single frequency comb will allow the use of several closely-spaced spectral data channels. We suggest that a channel spacing onthe order of 10 GHz or less can be achieved through proper frequency comb design and the use of a coherent receiver's inherent ability to sense the spectral content of signals. Most of the architecture is based on fiber optics technology, which has asubstantial commercial basis. We believe that most of the required components for the system envisioned are already commercially available; CTI has extensive experience in the development of the small number of components which are not readilyavailable.There is a demonstrated and ever-increasing need for high-data capacity telecommunications technology. The immediate commercial application of this device would be as a high-data rate upgrade to existing fiber telecommunications systems. Theproposed architecture is compatible with the existing telecommunications infrastructure and could be readily inserted into currently deployed systems as a product improvement. As most of the architecture is fiber-based, it should be relativelystraight-forward to transition any products generated by this effort.