Abstract

The traffic demand in optical communication networks still shows steady growth. It is expected that the demand for bandwidth in optical backbone networks will increase by a factor of 100 to 1000 within the next 10 years. Inevitably, the increase in power consumption with the full-scale penetration of information technology (IT) is an important problem that must be addressed, in combination with the issue of global warming. On this account, "optical communication technology for a green environment” becomes more and more important in the future. In my talk, I will outline energy saving techniques in the optical backbone networks that could build a green environment, that is to say, photonic networking technology for simplified/efficient network design, long-distance optical transmission technology to reduce power-consuming electrical functions, and bit-rate-flexible optical interface technology. Article not available.

© 2009 OSA, IEEE Photonics Society, SPIE, COS, CIC