acoustooptical cell

Model of acoustooptical switch for all optical telecommunication systems

Optical communication using semiconductor lasers as sources and optical fiber as the transmission medium is the only solution to handle the massive growth of network traffic. A single strand of fiber offers a bandwidth of 25 000 GHz, and a cable containing about 1000 optical fibers can carry six billion simultaneous full-screen videophone conversations – one for every person on earth. To utilize the potential bandwidth available on these optical fibers, other components of the optical network system have to be developed, ranging from detectors to multiplexers, buffers and switches.