Hi Ken,
I found this release interesting, and a bit mysterious. There's not enough meat on it to examine, but the gist comes across clearly enough.
Nortel has developed the world's first wavelength-locked, high-power laser that can be tuned to generate light at different wavelengths. This capability gives customers significant design flexibility and cost savings in Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) fiber-optic deployment.
If the locked part is their distinguishing characteristic, which frankly I don't fully understand [although I can surmise what it means], then I can't argue with it. But tunable lasers have been tossed around for some time now. Perhaps the significance of this piece of news borrows from the fact that for once, they have a marketable version of one. Also, much of the work to date has been using shorter wavelengths in the 900 nm region. In fact, last week's Lightwave has a good article that speaks to two such initiatives. Unfortunately, the search function at Lightwave is not working for some reason this evening. But if you wish, for tunable technology in the news you can go to:
pennwell.com click on magazines, and go to Lightwave. Then do a search on tunable lasers.
One thing that caught my eye in this release was their use of 1600 nm on the higher end. I wonder if this will affect their amplifier spacing specifications due to the higher losses at that wavelength?
The release goes on to state:
The precise control afforded by Nortel's locking laser ensures that narrowly spaced wavelengths in DWDM systems do not drift out of their acceptable range and interfere with adjacent wavelengths.
Too bad they don't elaborate and state what the actual spacing is.
This is apparently a component level device that they are referring to and not a fully provisioned network element that would be deployed in the field as is. Sounds like an OEM component, in other words. It lacks closure in the sense that it does not suggest any actual real life working solution, in the context of a mux with specific capabilities, number of wavelengths supported, the type of matrix it would sit in, etc.
If I come across anything that further elucidates on this, I'll pass it along. Thanks for the find.
Regards, Frank C.
ps - I've been kinda swamped lately, and am just getting to replies this evening. I notice that there are quite a few others that I'll have to get to sometime this weekend, here and elsewhere. Night, all! |
