This course offers an introduction to optical communication systems, and covers a broad range of topics with special attention for the practical perspective of these systems. Physical understanding of the components and systems prepares students for designing optical links, including making design trade-offs in the practical implementation of those systems.
After an introduction to the basic concepts of optical communications with an historical perspective, this course covers propagation in optical fibers, including attenuation and nonlinear effects, as well as the fabrication of optical fibers. It also covers chromatic and waveguide dispersion in optical fibers and dispersion compensation techniques.
Additional topics include optical transmitters such as semiconductor lasers and LEDs, photodetectors (PIN, APD) and optical amplifiers such as Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers and semiconductor optical amplifiers. Students also gain an understanding of performance measures such as bit error ratio (BER), eye diagram, receiver sensitivity, optical power budget, as well as of optical network architectures and topologies.
Finally, they gain insight in modulation and multiplexing techniques (WDM systems, WDM components, optical TDM). In the hands-on part, students learn how to design a long-haul telecom link using state-of-the-art simulation tools.
Online and Brussels, Belgium
The students have to prove that they master the principles of optical fiber networks, including e.g. attenuation, dispersion and nonlinear effects in optical fibers, how to mitigate those effects, how to make an optical power budget, how to choose the appropriate photodetector, and describe the operation of different types of optical amplifiers. In addition, the student should show insight in multiplexing techniques such as wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), the required components to realize such WDM networks, understand network topologies and performance monitoring of optical networks (through e.g. the eye diagram and the bit error rate).
Finally, the student should be able to design a point-to-point long-haul optical telecom link with dedicated commercial software packages (RSoft OptSim, Lumerical MODE Solutions) and show that they are able to find a cost-effective design solution by optimizing the interplay between attenuation, dispersion and nonlinear effects. After an in-depth introduction to the software tools, the students will receive a project assignment for which they have to make a written report describing their optical link, its performance, and the most important design choices they’ve made.
In conclusion, this course contributes to the following competences:
Optical design & engineering
Basic knowledge in optics.
Prof. Dr. In.
Heidi
Ottevaere
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