1 CREOL, The College of Optics & Photonics, University of Central Florida, Florida 32816-2700, USA
2 College of Precision Instrument and Opto-Electronic Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Space-division multiplexing (SDM) using multi-core fibers (MCFs) and few-mode fibers (FMFs) was proposed as a solution to increase capacity and/or reduce the cost per bit of fiber-optic transmission. Advances in passive and active SDM devices as well as digital signal processing have led to impressive SDM transmission demonstrations in the laboratory. Although the perceived advantages in terms of capacity and cost per bit that SDM offers over parallel SMF bundles are not universally accepted, SDM is beginning to emerge as an indispensable solution in major network segments. The introduction of the spatial degree of freedom allows optical networks to overcome fundamental limitations such as fiber nonlinearity as well practical limitations such as power delivery. We describe these application scenarios that the optical communications industry has already began to explore. From a fundamental science point of view, concepts such as the principal modes, generalized Stokes space, and multi-component solitons discovered in SDM research will likely have a broad impact in other areas of science and engineering.
space-division multiplexing (SDM) space-division multiplexing (SDM) fewmode fiber (FMF) fewmode fiber (FMF) multi-core fiber (MCF) multi-core fiber (MCF) wavelengthselective switch (WSS) wavelengthselective switch (WSS) passive optical network (PON) passive optical network (PON) Frontiers of Optoelectronics
2016, 9(2): 270