Meeting the growing bandwidth demand while continuously reducing capital and operation and maintenance expenditure will continue to be the two main driving forces for the development of optical communication technology. In order to meet the needs of the continuous development of the system, the development of active optical communication devices involves many technologies. However, in recent years, several technologies deserve our special attention: 40G/100G high-speed transmission device and module technology, next generation optical fiber access technology, radio over fiber (ROF) device and module technology, optical integration technology, high-speed interconnection optoelectronic devices and modules, and so on.
The convergence of wireless and optical technologies brings new opportunities for optical communications
With the advent of the 3G era, the optical communication industry has risen again, ushering in unprecedented opportunities. Optical fiber access is one of the most promising broadband access schemes. More than 90% of China's information is transmitted through optical fiber, especially with the issuance of 3G licenses, China ushers in the 3G era. Optical communication and related optoelectronic industries are becoming new growth points driving the entire information industry. It is estimated that the launch of 3G can bring an optical communication market of more than 100 billion yuan. Although we are technically ready for 3G, there is no doubt about the opportunities facing the optical communication industry, but we should also see the challenges it faces.
From the current situation, the direction of future wireless communication towards LTE has been quite clear.
Among optical devices and optical module technologies in this field, optical RF ROF optical devices/modules deserve attention.
At present, the demand for high-speed multimedia mobile communication continues to grow, and the requirements of wireless communication systems for broadband transmission capacity are also getting higher and higher. At the same time, with the rapid growth of wireless communication system capacity, the cell radius is getting smaller and smaller, and the number of micro cells and micro cells is increasing rapidly. On the other hand, the existence of multiple wireless standards requires the access system to have the ability to operate multiple services. China has started the "U-China" program. How to solve the problems of wireless high-speed data transmission and wireless access coverage in buildings has become the key technology that needs to be solved urgently. ROF wireless access technology has become one of the most promising technologies to solve the above problems.
In the ROF system, because the optical carrier carries analog microwave signals, compared with the traditional digital optical fiber transmission link, the system has more stringent requirements on the performance of optical devices, the dispersion and nonlinear effects of the link itself.
Although ROF technology has a long way to go from large-scale commercial use, and there are also many key technologies to overcome, scientific research has always been ahead of technology industrialization. At the same time, the general trend of optical wireless integration is unstoppable. ROF will be one of the technologies that researchers and operators pay most attention to, both now and in the future. As for the research of ROF technology, people's attention will also shift from theoretical research to practical application, to lower cost and higher integration efforts.