Abstract

The increase in the demand for bandwidth, driven by the explosion of internet-related services and the need for complex optical networking functions, necessitates a major leap in transmission capacities of wavelength-division- multiplexed (WDM) systems. Present WDM systems announcements indicate that capacities of 160 × 10 Gb/s channels operating in the C and L-band wavelength windows are now commer- cially-available. With growing demand, there are three options to increase this capacity: higher channel data rates, higher WDM channel density, and larger bandwidth. While the first two options rely on major technological advances in both optics and electronics, the third is based on existing technologies, provided efficient and reliable amplification is available outside of the EDFA gain window.

© 2002 Optical Society of America