Problems of transmitters and receivers in fibre-optic communication systems

Abstract

Fibre-optic communication systems are finding increasing interest, mainly due to the promising properties of glass fibres. The transmitters and receivers of such systems operate with semiconductor devices (laser diodes, light-emitting diodes, photodiodes) whose properties have to be matched to those of fibres and to the signals to be transmitted. For this purpose numerous physical, technological and transmission requirements have to be coordinated, e.g. an optical wavelength has to be chosen that allows for low fibre loss, appropriate materials for light sources and detectors have to be found and processed, the size and the angular radiation characteristic of the source have to be adapted to the fibre, the operating conditions of the source have to be optimized, and the receiver, consisting of detector, amplifier and filter, has to be designed for optimum signal recovery.