Experimental PSK/ASK transceiver for the STARNET WDM computer communication network

STARNET is an optical wavelength-division-multiplexed computer communication network that offers each user both a circuit-switched subnetwork and a packer-switched subnetwork. The authors constructed an experimental STARNET node transceiver. The transceiver uses one integrated phase and amplitude modulator to transmit 125 Mb/s amplitude-modulated packet-switched data and 2.488 Gb/s phase modulated circuit-switched data using the same lightwave. The transmitter has an output power of 5 dBm at 1.32 mu m. The receiver recovers the circuit-switched and packet-switched data using heterodyne detection and has a sensitivity of -25 dBm. The resulting system power budget is 30 dB.<
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