NIST hosts 12th biennial symposium on optical fiber measurements in Boulder. (General Developments).Since 1980, optical fiber metrologists from around the world have gathered every other year at NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology, Washington, DC, www.nist.gov) The standards-defining agency of the U.S. government, formerly the National Bureau of Standards. It is one of three agencies that fall under the Technology Administration (www.technology. in Boulder for the Symposium on Optical Fiber Measurements (SOFM SOFM Self Organizing Feature Mapping ), which covers measurement issues associated with optical fibers, related components, and optical communications Optical communications The transmission of speech, data, video, and other information by means of the visible and the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. systems. This year's meeting, held in September, came at a time when many companies in the optical telecommunications industry are struggling to survive. Even so, 145 scientists from 18 countries attended, and the number of paper submissions was up by about 50 % from the previous SOFM. The high quality and diversity of topics of the papers presented made the conference especially useful. Popular topics included polarization-mode dispersion, non-linear behavior, fiber and waveguide waveguide, device that controls the propagation of an electromagnetic wave so that the wave is forced to follow a path defined by the physical structure of the guide. geometry, group delay, dispersion, wavelength calibration, polarization dependence, multimode fiber An optical fiber with a larger core than singlemode fiber. It is the most commonly used fiber for short distances such as LANs. Light can enter the core at different angles, making it easier to connect the light source to broader light sources such as LEDs. properties, and systems modeling. The talks are summarized in four- to six-page papers included in the technical digest. The reference information is: P. A. Williams and G. W. Day, eds., Technical Digest: Symposium on Optical Fiber Measurements, 2002, NIST Special Publication 988 (2002). Copies of the Digest are available free of charge. CONTACT: Paul Williams, (303) 497-3805; pwilliam@boulder.nist.gov. |
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