NOVEL MULTI-HOP LOCAL AREA NETWORKS BASED ON WAVELENGTH DIVISION MULTIPLEXING AND HOLOGRAPHIC MULTIPLEXING

UTILIZING THE HUGE POTENTIAL BANDWIDTH OF OPTICAL FIBER-BASED NETWORKS REQUIRES TECHNOLOGIES THAT ENABLE MANY USERS TO COMMUNICATE SIMULTANEOUSLY OVER A LARGE AREA AT HIGH BIT RATES. UNFORTUNATELY, TIME DIVISION MULTIPLEXING AND CODE DIVISION MULTIPLE ACCESSING ARE BOTH RESTRICTED BY ELECTRONICS, AND THIS RESTRICTION PLACES A FUNDAMENTAL LIMITATION OF APPROXIMATELY 1 TO 10 GIGABITS/SEC (GB/S) ON THROUGHPUT. HOWEVER, TRADITIONAL WAVELENGTH DIVISION MULTIPLEXING (WDM) ALLOWS A HIGH LEVEL OF CONCURRENCY BETWEEN USERS AND COULD POTENTIALLY ACHIEVE 10 TO 100 GB/S NETWORK THROUGHPUT. TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES IN ACHIEVING BRAODBAND, TUNABLE, LASER DIODES AND OPTICAL FILTERS AND DIFFICULTIES IN STABILIZING THE WAVELENGTHS IN GREAT NUMBERS OF WIDELY DISTRIBUTED LASER DIODES MAKE THIS SCHEME APPEAR UNACHIEVABLE FOR AT LEAST 5 TO 10 YEARS. INNOVATIVE IDEAS IN MULTI-HOP NETWORKS, COMBINING THE PARALLELISM OF PARALLEL PROCESSING WITH THE EFFICIENCY OF PACKET-SWITCHED LOCAL AREA NETWORKS (LANS), ALLOW A HIGH LEVEL OF CONCURRENCY WITH FEW OF THE FUNDAMENTAL OR TECHNOLOGICAL LIMITATIONS THAT PLAGUE THE PREVIOUSLY DESCRIBED APPROACHES. THE APPROACH STUDIED HERE COMBINES THE FLEXIBILITY OF FREE-SPACE HOLOGRAPHIC TECHNIQUES WITH THE MULTI-HOP NETWORK DESIGN TO REDUCE POWER LOSSES AND INCREASE INTERCONNECTIVITY. THIS LEADS TO INCREASED ROBUSTNESS, LOWER COST, AND INCREASED MAINTAINABILITY DUE TO A NUMBER OF REDUNDANT PATHS AND LIMITING THE NUMBER OF LASER DIODE WAVELENGTHS NEEDED. IN PHASE I OF THIS PROJECT, AN ADVANCED MULTI-HOP NETWORK WITH 1 TERABIT/SEC THROUGHPUT WILL BE BUILT AND TESTED. ALSO, FABRICATION AND TESTING WILL BE PERFORMED ON A HOLOGRAPH MULTIPLEXING ARRAY.