Design of Ultra High Speed Optical Transmission Systems

Student: Weng Keat Lum

Supervisor: Aleksandar Rakic

Category: Engineering Thesis Project - Communications

The increase in demand for bandwidth in high-speed optical communications has sparked off a wave of interests in laser technology. Traditional edge emitting lasers have been slowly replaced by the emerging Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) technology, especially in the 850nm region for short distance communications

This thesis will examine the characteristics of 850nm VCSELs and its applications in short haul communications, such as local area networks (LANs) and board to board optical interconnections. It will also present an overview of the types of VCSEL-based solutions available to meet the increasing bandwidth demand.

A typical 10 Gigabit Ethernet system design model will also be simulated using VPItransmissionMaker/ VPIcomponentMaker from VirtualPhotonics Inc. Two designs solutions based on a serial optical link and coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) system will be explored in the simulation.

Thesis Document (PDF)

Poster Presentation (PDF)