A novel 1470-nm-band (S+ band) wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) transmission system is described. The first advantage of S+-band transmission is suppression of degradation caused by four-wave mixing (FWM), which has been the dominant impairment factor in WDM transmission systems on dispersion-shifted fibers (DSFs). FWM suppression by using the S+ band instead of the conventional 1550-nm-band (M band) is successfully demonstrated. The second advantage is expansion of the usable bandwidth by using the S+ band together with other wavelength bands. A triple-wavelength-band WDM repeaterless transmission experiment using the S+ band, the M band and the L band (1580-nm-band) is conducted over DSF, and it is shown that degradation due to inter-wavelength-band nonlinear interactions is negligible in the transmission. Moreover, the transmission performance of an S+-band linear repeating system is estimated by computer simulation, and compared with that of other wavelength-band systems. In the experiments, thulium-doped fiber amplifiers (TDFAs) are used for amplification of signals in the S+ band.

We developed an optical transceiver diode (TRAD) module for bi-directional time-compression-multiplexing (TCM) transmission systems. A wavelength-insensitive structure as a receiver and a low-capacitance configuration in the module provide a high sensitivity. Stable switching of 156 Mbit/s NRZ burst signals between the transmitter and receiver modes is achieved. In addition, it is shown that optical module cost can be further reduced by using passive alignment on a Si bench.

The statistical behavior of the amplitude probability distribution of intermodulation distortion interference in multichannel optical-cable TV systems was experimentally investigated. In multichannel transmission, the non-linearity of a laser diode (LD) or an electrical amplifier can cause intermodulation distortion (composite-second-order beat; CSO, composite-triple-beat; CTB, etc. ). Even though it has been discussed as laser-clipping distortion, intermodulation distortion is usually distortion from AM-VSB carriers. The statistical analysis and evaluation of the distortion in transmitted channel is in controversial. We evaluated the distortion in 20 frequency-division-multiplexed 16-QAM channels, with each carrier carrying 80 Mbps for an optical cable TV system. We first enumerated the distortion components causing interference in each transmission channel so as to identify the intermodulation products. Then, in selected channels, we precisely measured the power of each kind of distortion and the amplitude distributions of the intermodulation distortion from sinusoidal and digital-modulated carriers on cable TV as a function of optical modulation depth (OMD) of LD. And we clarified how the probability distribution function (PDF) changed as the OMD increased. Also, the BER performance of a 16-QAM signal was measured and compare to the intermodulation behavior of the different distortion sources. We found evidence that the amplitude distribution of intermodulation distortion from digital carriers differs from that of thermal noise. Experimental results showed that the PDF of the intermodulation distortion changed when the ratio of intermodulation distortion among all undesired signals varied with the OMD. The BER performance varied with intermodulation of both analogue and digital carriers even when the carrier to interference noise power ratio (CIR) is the same.

After a short introduction to the different requirements to and techniques for wavelength conversion, focus is on cross-gain and cross-phase modulation in SOA based converters. Aspects like jitter accumulation, regeneration and conversion to the same wavelength is discussed. It is predicted that jitter accumulation can be minimised while also assuring a high extinction ratio by using a 9-10 dB ratio between the signal and CW power. Using this guideline simulations show that 20 cross-gain modulation converters can be cascaded at 10 Gbit/s with only 20 ps of accumulated jitter and an extinction ratio of 10 dB. The regenerative capabilities of the cross-phase converters are described and verified experimentally at 20 Gbit/s. By controlling the input power to an EDFA, the noise redistribution and improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio is demonstrated. In a similar experiment at 2.5 Gbit/s, the regeneration causes a reduction of the required input power to an in-line EDFA of 6 dB for a power penalty of 1 dB at a bit error rate of 10-9. If two converters are concatenated the power requirement is reduced 8 dB. Obviously, the power reduction allows for longer spans between in-line EDFAs. A simple scheme for regeneration without wavelength conversion is assessed at 2.5 Gbit/s resulting in 4.5 dB lower required EDFA input power. The scheme is characterised by a quasi-digital transfer function that is ideal for regeneration. A combination of cross-gain and cross-phase conversion is used to perform conversion to the same wavelength at 20 Gbit/s. The insertion penalty for this dual-stage converter is below 2 dB and is mainly caused by extinction ratio degradation from the cross-gain converter. Finally, a new device for all-optical wavelength conversion has been proposed and 2.5 Gbit/s operation has been simulated with good results.

A 1.55-µm hybrid integrated wavelength-converter module was fabricated using a two-channel spot-size converter integrated semiconductor optical amplifier (SS-SOA) on a planar-lightwave-circuit (PLC) platform. Clear eye opening and penalty-free wavelength conversion were obtained at 2.5-Gb/s modulation with a wide wavelength difference of 46 nm. The module showed good characteristics including low insertion loss (0.1 dB), and high conversion efficiency (-0.2 dB). It also showed stable wavelength conversion for as wide as a 13 temperature range.

An image edge sharpening technique with phase correction for digital image is presented. In this paper the point spread functions of a typical standard single focal lens and zoom lens are investigated with a several different apertures. And from this investigation the Fourier phase figure pattern of the point-spread function is identified. The technique here includes a traditional one (a Laplacian operator) and phase-only synthesis with the corrected Fourier phase. The Fourier phase of the original non-blurred image is estimated recursively and it is utilized for implementation of the phase-only synthesis, which is powerful for image edge sharpening. A human visual property is also introduced as a weight function in order to maintain the natural smoothness in the gray level of the resulting processed image. Simulation examples show that the proposed technique is superior to the traditional one.

An optical add-drop multiplexer with a grating-loaded directional coupler in silica waveguides is demonstrated. The device for this configuration has a large fabrication tolerance and is small in size. A new scheme, in which the coupling length of the directional coupler is twice the complete coupling length, enables low cross-talk for both add and drop operations. This device is polarization-independent due to its relatively low-temperature process.

Recent status of the polymer optical fiber (POF) for high speed data communication and telecommunication is reviewed. The GI POF was proposed for the first time 20 years ago at Keio University, and several methodologies to fabricate GI POF have been currently proposed worldwide. In this paper, we both theoretically and experimentally verify that the most transparent GI POF can be obtained by the polymer-dopant system. The relation between the refractive index profile and the dispersion characteristics of the GI POF was quantitatively clarified. The refractive index profile of the GI POF obtained by the interfacial-gel polymerization process was controlled to enable to transmit the order of gigabit per second bit rate. Furthermore, the accurate approximation of the refractive index profile and consideration of mode dependent attenuation enabled to precisely predict the dispersion characteristics of the GI POF.

It is an important problem in signal processing, system realization and system identification to find linear discrete-time systems which are consistent with given covariance parameters. This problem is formulated as a problem of finding discrete-time positive real functions which interpolate given covariance parameters. Various investigations have yielded several significant solutions to the problem, while there remains an important open problem concerning the McMillan degree. In this paper, we use more general input-output characteristics than covariance parameters and consider finding discrete-time positive real matrix functions which interpolate such characteristics. The input-output characteristics are given by the coefficients of the Taylor series at some complex points in the open unit disk. Thus our problem is a generalization of the interpolation problem of covariance parameters. We reduce the problem to a directional interpolation problem with a constraint and develop the solution by a state-space based new approach. The main results consist of the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of the discrete-time positive real matrix function which interpolates the given characteristics and has a limited McMillan degree, and a parameterization of all such functions. These are a contribution to the open problem and a generalization of the previous result.

Aiming at wideband and flat supercontinuum generation (SC) from optical fibers in the 1.55-µm wavelength region, we study both experimentally and theoretically how SC spectra are influenced by group-velocity dispersion (GVD) of fibers. In the anomalous GVD region, since the peak power of pump pulses is kept high during propagation through the fiber by the higher-order soliton effect, the Raman effect has an adverse effect to flat and wideband SC generation. In the zero GVD region, the interplay of the third-order dispersion (TOD) and the self-phase modulation splits the SC spectrum into two main components. On the other hand, in the normal GVD region, nevertheless the SC spectrum broadens wider and smoother than those in anomalous and zero GVD regions, it is still asymmetric when TOD of the fiber can not be ignored. From these results, we find that a dispersion-flattened fiber with normal GVD is the most suitable for flat and wideband SC generation. A 280-nm wide SC spectrum with the spectral-density fluctuation less than 10 dB is actually generated from such a fiber.

We have developed an InP-based monolithic optical frequency discriminator consisting of a temperature-insensitive optical filter and dual photodiodes. This integrated device detects the optical frequency deviation of the input light as differential photocurrent from the dual photodiodes, and the photocurrent is fedback to the light source for frequency stabilization through a differential amplifier. The FSR and extinction ratio of the filter are 50 GHz and 20 dB. The total opto-electronic conversion efficiency is 40%. In a frequency stabilization experiment using the developed discriminator, the frequency fluctuation of a DFB laser was reduced to less than 10 MHz.

Recent technologies for increasing memory density in random access memory optical disks including magnetic super resolution method, super resolution method in phase change disk, blue laser diode, near field optics, and photo chromic memory are reviewed.

WDM transmission experiments over cascaded sections of optical links including wavelength converting 2R-transponders have been carried out in a loop testbed. Using dispersion compensated links and simple direct modulated transponder lasers, up to 11 cascaded crossconnects and 1750 km trunk lines have been bridged with 2.5 Gbit/s NRZ signals. The limitations are given mainly due to the accumulated jitter as it is shown by numerical simulations. The results indicate, that 2R-transponders are a useful approach to a flexible WDM network design using bitrate-transparent wavelength conversion.

Wavelet filters used in usual applications are not time-varying filters. In this paper, we present a novel method to design biorthogonal wavelet filters which are orthogonal to the input signals. We call newly designed filters time-varying lifting wavelet filters (TVLWF). Their feature is to vary the wavelet filters adapting to the input signal by tuning free parameters contained in the lifting scheme developed by Sweldens. These filters are almost compact support and perfect reconstruction. By using TVLWF, we demonstrate an application to data compression of electrocardiogram (ECG) which is one of the semi-periodic time-series signals and show that the time-varying system can be constructed easily and the proposed method is very useful for data compression.

Minimizing the guard time, Tguard, in the TCM-TDMA PDS scheme is essential in maximizing TCM transmission efficiency. As a replacement for the commonly adopted worst-case approach to TCM-TDMA PDS system estimation, this paper proposes a statistical approach. The level distributions of losses and n-th order Fresnel reflections are determined from published measurements. The proposed approach estimates the reflection of the optical access network.

This paper reports on time-space conversion-based differential processing of optical signals using a high-resolution arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) and a spatial filter at a wavelength of 1.55 µm. We clarify the advantages of the AWG device and show where it is applicable. In order to reduce loss at the spatial filter, we propose a new phase-only filter that functions as a differential filter. The difference between the exact differential filter and the proposed phase-only filter is calculated theoretically. We confirm experimentally that the optical pulse can be differentiated by the proposed filter. For application of differential processing, we also proposed a phase modulation to amplitude modulation (PM-AM) conversion and demonstrated the PM-AM conversion at 10 Gbit/s signals using a PSK-non-return-to-zero (NRZ) format.

We have proposed and demonstrated a novel optical regenerator architecture employing electroabsorption modulators as wavelength converters. The employment of EA modulators is advantageous for high-speed operation and flexibility in the bit-rate for the pulse regeneration. In addition, the EA modulator-wavelength-converter acts also as a photo diode for clock extraction. Compensation of the optical SNR and Q-factor has been demonstrated, even in cascaded noise load. Furthermore, against dispersion loading, we have confirmed that waveform recovery and Q-factor improvement is obtained by midway insertion of the optical regenerator. The proposed architecture will offer a wide-band-electronics-free optical regenerator in multi-tens of gigabit per second WDM networks.

A novel combinatorial optimization algorithm called 2-stage discrete optimization method (2DOM) is proposed for the largest common subgraph problem (LCSP) in this paper. Given two graphs G=(V1, E1) and H=(V2, E2), the goal of LCSP is to find a subgraph G'=(V1', E1') of G and a subgraph H'=(V2', E2') of H such that G' and H' are not only isomorphic to each other but also their number of edges is maximized. The two graphs G' and H' are isomorphic when |V1'|=|V2'| and |E1'|=|E2'|, and there exists one-to-one vertex correspondence f: V1' V2' such that {u, v} E1' if and only if{f(u), f(v)} E2'. LCSP is known to be NP-complete in general. The 2DOM consists of a construction stage and a refinement stage to achieve the high solution quality and the short computation time for large size difficult combinatorial optimization problems. The construction stage creates a feasible initial solution with considerable quality, based on a greedy heuristic method. The refinement stage improves it keeping the feasibility, based on a random discrete descent method. The performance is evaluated by solving two types of randomly generated 1200 LCSP instances with a maximum of 500 vertices for G and 1000 vertices for H. The simulation result shows the superiority of 2DOM to the simulated annealing in terms of the solution quality and the computation time.

The problem of transient scattering caused by abrupt extinction of a terminative conducting screen in a waveguide is considered. First, a boundary-value problem is formulated to describe the transient phenomena, the problem in which the boundary condition depends on time. Then, application of the Fourier transformation with respect to time derives a Wiener-Hopf-type equation, which is solved by a commonly known decomposition procedure. The transient fields are obtained through the deformation of the integration path for the inverse transformation and the results are represented in terms of the incomplete Lipschitz-Hankel integrals. Numerical examples showing typical transient phenomena are attached.

In this paper, we study a new hybrid speech coder which employs a modified version of the harmonic sinusoidal analysis to encode the periodic contents of speech waveform and to split the speech spectrum into two frequency regions of harmonic and random components. A reliable fundamental frequency is estimated for the harmonic region using both speech and its linear predictive (LP) residual spectrum. The peak envelope of speech spectrum is encoded in terms of the coefficients of an all-pole spectrum. A harmonic tracking algorithm appropriately interpolates the sinusoidal parameters to achieve a smooth transition between the parameter update points and to reconstruct an essential level of periodicity in the synthetic voiced speech. The random part of spectrum and unvoiced speech are coded using the conventional CELP algorithm. The individual components are then combined at the decoder to obtain the synthetic speech. The proposed hybrid coder which combines the powerful features of the sinusoidal and CELP coding algorithms yeilds a high quality synthetic speech at 4.05 kbps.