Policom

Program

The Course is aimed to offer the comprehension of the present Optical Communications, the technology supporting the worldwide telecommunication networks. The Course is self-contained and provides the knowledge for designing simple optical communications nets. During the Course, leaders of the industrial sectors of the optical communications (manufacturers and operators) will be invited and the visit to major plans in the sector will be even organized. The Course is complemented by numerical exercises and labs experimentations.

Introduction. The role of the optical communications in the telecommunications stacks. Introduction to the WDM layer and to the main optical communications protocols.

Optical Fibers. The fiber-optic technology. The attenuation issues. The fiber-optic main parameters. The optical windows. The WDM grids.

The propagation phenomena. The free-space propagation. The mode concept. The Laguerre-Gauss solutions. The Gouy-phase. The dispersion diagram. The fiber-optic propagation. The importance of the cladding. The exact solutions of the fiber-optic propagation: the case of the parabolic-index and of the step-index profile. The propagation wave-vector and the main propagation parameters. The Gaussian approximation.

The transmission phenomena. The dispersion in the fiber-optic propagation. Dispersion main parameters and representations. The dispersion managements and the dispersion compensation. The non-linear phenomena in the fiber-optic transmission. Kerr-effect. Soliton solutions.

Optical amplification. The laws of the matter-radiation interaction. The Planck law and the consequence on the receivers noise. The stimulated phenomenon. The two- and three-levels systems. EDFA and Raman amplification. The noise in the optical amplification. Chain of optical amplifiers.

The optical communications system. The evaluation of the power-budget for optical links. SNR, BER, Q and quality parameters in the optical communication systems. The electrical and optical noise: origin and evaluation. The light properties and photo-rivelation statistics. The direct receiver. The coherent receiver. The importance of the coherent-detection in the multi-level transmission.

Bibliography

R.M. Gagliardi and S. Karp, Optical Communications, Editore: WILEY International, Anno edizione: 1995
Note: is a complementary reference book for the optical communications systems aspects

M.J. Adams, Introduction to Optical Waveguides, Editore: John Wiley e Son, Anno edizione: 1981
Note: is the complementary reference book for the fiber-optic propagation

E. Desurvire, Erbium-Doped Fiber Amplification: Principle and Applications, Editore: Wiley International, Anno edizione: 1989
Note: is the complementary reference book for the Optical Amplification part

R. Loudon, The Quantum Theory of the Light, Editore: Oxford Science Publications, Anno edizione: 2000
Note: is the complementary reference book for the Light and Noise aspects

Mario Martinelli and Paolo Martelli, Fundamental of Optical Communications, Editore: Wiley International, Anno edizione: 2012
Note: is the reference book of the Course

Mario Martinelli, Slide collection of the Course, Anno edizione: 2012
Note: is the collection of the slides used in delivering the lectures: available on the Web