Optical Signal Transmission

In this chapter, the principles of the optical signal transmission will be explored. First, the characteristics of transferred data will be analyzed, focusing on the pseudorandom bit sequence (PRBS), which is the typical signal used to test digital communication prototypes. Second, the fundamentals and the main types of optical fibers will be explained. Next, an overview of the core building blocks of an electro-optical transceiver front-end will be presented, explaining each component and its main requirements. Finally, the main key parameters of optical transmission from receiver’s point of view are defined, detailing the Gaussian noise model to determine the sensitivity with respect to the noise performance and the main penalty sources.