California Institute of Technology

Peter L Chua

James L Lambert

Larry A Bergman

John M Morookian

The invention is a fiber-optic communication network, including a fiber-optic coupler having multiple fiber-optic ports and multiple optical transceivers which are individually connected to one of the fiber-optic pods. Each optical transceivers includes apparatus for transmitting to and receiving from the fiber-optic coupler, optical pulse signals in accordance with a predetermined code sequence of the transceiver, and optical amplifiers for amplifying the optical pulse signals. Each optical transceivers also includes apparatus for spectrally phase encoding/decoding, in accordance with the predetermined code sequence, optical pulse signals being transmitted to and received from its associated fiber-optic port, and apparatus for reconfiguring the code sequence in accordance with a user select signal. Each optical transceivers further includes detection apparatus for detecting a received optical pulse signal transmitted from another of the optical transceivers. The detector apparatus includes apparatus for magnifying the amplitude of the received optical pulse signal. Additionally, each of the optical transceivers includes apparatus for selecting an optical carrier center frequency at which the optical transceiver receives and transmits optical pulse signals within a predetermined frequency band in accordance with a user center frequency select signal. The different carrier center frequencies are selectable from a set of non-overlapping carrier frequency bands. This allows communications on the network between different user pairs at different carrier center frequencies.

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Pasadena, CA, United States of America

Peter L Chua