Optical Fiber Waveguides

The development of optical communications systems is of great current technological interest. A system operating at the frequency of visible or near infrared light would have a capacity that is exceedingly large, and this is of course a principal reason for interest in such systems. Others include freedom from electromagnetic interference and the potentiality of achieving small size in the transmission medium. There would be many elements in such a system, including a source of light, a means for modulating the light beam, a transmission system, and a detector, as well as other components, perhaps; in this chapter we will be concerned only with the transmission aspects.