SYMPOSIUM ON OPTICAL FIBER MEASUREMENTS.

Attendance at the 11th biennial Symposium on Optical Fiber Measurements (SOFM), held in September 2000 at the Boulder Laboratories, was over 300, up 65 % from the previous symposium. Eighteen countries were represented. The symposium is one of the principal international forums for reporting research results on meas-urement technology for optical fiber and other optoelectronic components. It was founded in 1980 by NIST staff and continues with the technical co-sponsorship of the Optical Society of America and the IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society. Important topics this year were dispersion measurements, both polarization dispersion and chromatic dispersion, and nonlinear optical measurements. Interest in these topics arises primarily because of the dramatic growth in wavelength-division-multiplexed optical communication systems wherein 100 or more separate wavelength channels, each modulated at up to 40 Gbit/s, are transmitted over a single optical fiber. Dispersion and non-linear optical effects are amo ng the primary limitations to system performance. Copies of the Technical Digest are available from NIST (email: [e-mail]).