APPLICATIONS OF COHERENT TECHNIQUES TO OPTICAL-TRANSMISSION - STATE-OF-THE-ART AND PERSPECTIVES

The state of the art and the perspectives of application of coherent t echniques to optical transmission systems are discussed. After a revie w of the performance achieved with point-to-point single channel trans mission systems, different frequency-division-multiplexed systems are analyzed for both point-to-point transmission and local area network a pplications. Attention has been devoted to possible applications of co herent optical systems in broadcast and local area networks exploiting both subcarrier and frequency division multiplexing techniques. In co nclusion the potentials offered by these systems are considered relati vely to space intersatellite optical links.