Research in coherent optical communication systems progressed until the early 1990s. After the advent of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) coherent systems were abandoned, because the receiver sensitivity improvement achievable with EDFAs was considered to be sufficient.
Today, the rapid internet growth requires more and more optical data transmission capacity. Coherent optical communication research has therefore been revived, given that coherent transmission can greatly improve spectral efficiency, that the ratio of electronic processing speed and laser line-widths is becoming high enough to allow handling even of QPSK signals, and that optical signal impairments can be undone electronically.
This topic shall cover all aspects of coherent optical communication systems from history through ongoing progress to likely future developments and shall foster the discussion among the experts.
A number of highly recognized invited experts will introduce the various aspects of coherent communication. Contributions are solicited in particular in the following areas
- Optical, optoelectronic and electronic devices and subsystems
- Digital and analog, electronic and optical signal processing and recovery
- Compensation and mitigation of transmission impairments
- Modulation formats and high spectral efficiency
- Orthogonal frequency division multiplex
- Realtime and offline transmission experiments
- Future development
