Use of laser diodes locked to atomic transitions in multiwavelength coherent communications

The possibility of building multiwavelength coherent communication systems based on low-cost semiconductor lasers in the 0.8 mu m range locked to rubidium linear absorption is investigated. The values of frequency offset between the resonances of both the D/sub 2/ (780 nm) and D/sub 1/ (794.7 nm) lines are considered. A simple two-carrier FDM set-up using three resonances of the D/sub 2/ line is presented and the optical frequency offsets are measured. >