Abstract

The rapid growth of data traffic and bandwidth demands of end-users have lead to the introduction of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technologies in long-haul backbone as well as metropolitan area networks. WDM reduces system cost significantly because fibers and possibly optical amplifiers can be shared among many WDM channels. The inherent drawback, however, lies in the cost and installation space of transmitters and receivers. As each WDM channel needs its own transmitter and receiver, an increase in the number of channel always involves an equivalent increase in transmitters and receivers. Consequently, the increase in transmitter and receiver cost is proportional to the number of channels. This issue is particularly severe in metropolitan area networks and ultrahigh capacity systems with a large number of channels, where the cost of transmitters and receivers accounts for a relatively large portion of system cost. In this context, an optical integrated device is an attractive alternative for discrete optical components. As the number of channels increases, this technology will call for a reduction of the number of separate components in favor of cost-effective and compact integrated solutions.

© 2002 Optical Society of America