Forward to the Special Issue of the Journal of Lightwave Technology on High-Speed Technology for Lightwave Applications
The 1980's may well be noted in lightwave history for a seemingly endless stream of record breaking improvements in high-speed technology for devices and systems. At the start of the decade, first generation commercial digital lightwave systems typically operated at data rates below 100 Mbit/s. In laboratory experiments, rates from a few hundred megabits per second to 1 Gbit/s were being explored, with some special devices reaching speeds of a few gigahertz.