08-16-2017, 10:54 PM
The scope of the Journal includes advances in the state-of-the-art of optical networking science, technology, and engineering. Both theoretical contributions (including new techniques, concepts, analyses, and economic studies) and practical contributions (including optical networking experiments, prototypes, and new applications) are encouraged. Subareas of interest include the architecture and design of optical networks, optical network survivability and security, software-defined optical networking, elastic optical networks, data and control plane advances, network management related innovation, and optical access networks. Enabling technologies and their applications are suitable topics only if the results are shown to directly impact optical networking beyond simple point-to-point networks.
Optical communication, also known as optical telecommunication, is communication at a distance using light to carry information. It can be performed visually or by using electronic devices. The earliest basic forms of optical communication date back several millennia, while the earliest electrical device created to do so was the photophone, invented in 1880.
An optical communication system uses a transmitter, which encodes a message into an optical signal, a channel, which carries the signal to its destination, and a receiver, which reproduces the message from the received optical signal. When electronic equipment is not employed the 'receiver' is a person visually observing and interpreting a signal, which may be either simple (such as the presence of a beacon fire) or complex (such as lights using color codes or flashed in a Morse code sequence).
Free-space optical communication has been deployed in space, while terrestrial forms are naturally limited by geography, weather and the availability of light. This article provides a basic introduction to different forms of optical communication.
