APPENDIX F. GLOSSARY

APD

Avalanche photo-detector (receiver)

a-Si

Amorphous silicon

ATM

Asynchronous transfer mode standard

BER

Bit-error rate

Birefringence

Refraction of light in 2 slightly different directions to form 2 rays

Byte-parallel transmission also, "ribbon-wide" transmission (?)

CATV

Cable Television

CCD

Charge-coupled device

CD-E

Erasable compact disk

CD-R

Rewritable compact disk

CD-ROM

Compact disk read-only memory

CDDI

Copper distributed data interface

CFC

Carbon-fiber composite

CK-MB

Creatine kinase

CW

Continuous wave

DBR

Distributed Bragg reflector

DBS

Direct broadcast satellite

DFB

Distibuted feedback (laser)

DMT

Discrete multitone

DRAM

Dynamic random access memory

DSVD

Double-sided video disk

DVD

Double-video disk

EDFA

Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (component for high- capacity fiber communications networks)

EIA

Electronics Industry Assn. (U.S)

EIAJ

Electronics Industry Assn. (Japan)

EEPROM

Eraseable electrically programmable read-only memory

ESD

Electrostatic discharge

Fabry-Pérot (or F-P or FP) Fabry-Pérot device (one of two parallel reflecting surfaces moves in response to pressure changes) used for interferometric temperature sensors

Fabry-Pérot interferometer

Interferometer having 2 parallel glass plates, silvered on inner surfaces, where incoming light waves are multipy reflected between them and ultimately transmitted

FBG

Fiber Bragg grating or fiber Bragg sensor

FDDI

Fiber-distributed data interface

FDMT

Frequency division multiplexing technology

Femtosecond

10 ^-15 seconds

FET

Field effect transistor

FITL

Fiber in the loop

FLIR

Forward-looking infrared laser

FOFIA

Fluoroimmunoassay

FOG

Fiber-optic gyroscope

FP

See Fabry-Pérot

FTR

Fiberoptic temperature (laser) radar

FTTC

Fiber to the curb (high-capacity optical communications services that terminate at a neighborhood hub, and each home is then connected to the optical hub with conventional copper wire)

FTTH

Fiber to the home (high-bandwidth optical communications services direct to consumers, as opposed to FTTC)

GATT

General Accord on Trade & Tariffs

GB

gigabyte (10 ⁹ bytes) (gigabit is abbreviated Gbit)

GI-POF

Graded-index POF

GPS

Global positioning satellite (U.S. Navy navigation and positioning system used worldwide)

HDTV/VDR

High definition television/Video disk recorder

HFC

Hybrid fiber and coaxial cable

I/O

Input/output

IOC

Intraocular lens

IC

Integrated circuit

IO

Integrated optics

IOC

Integrated optical circuit

IF

Intermediate frequency

IR

Infrared

ISDN

Integrated services digital network

KDD

Japan's overseas telephone company

LAN

Local area network

LED

Light-emitting diode

LD

Laser diode

l/f

Low-frequency (?)

loop laser

low-cost lasers for FTTC, FTTH applications

MB

Megabyte (megabit is abbreviated Mbit)

MBE

Molecular beam epitaxy

MCM

Multichip module

MESFET

Metal-semiconductor field-effect transistor

Microbench

The technology of using silicon wafers as a substrate for hybrid integration of silica waveguides and semiconductor lasers and photdetectors

MITI

Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Japan)

MO

Magneto-optical

MPEG

"Moving pictures experts group," which develops standards for data compression

MQW

multi-quantum well (DFB laser)

MZ

Mach-Zehnder

NA

Numerical aperture

NSOM

Near-field scanning microscopy

NTSC

National Transmission Standards Committee. U.S. standard for TV broadcasting established in the 1940s

NTT

Nippon Telephone and Telegraph

OCDR

Optical coherence domain reflectometer

ODL

Optical data link (typically, components for high-capacity telecommunications trunk lines)

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

OEIC

Optoelectronic integrated circuit

OEM

Original equipment manufacturer

OIDA

Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (U.S.)

OITDA

Optoelectronics Industry Technology Development Association (Japan)

OTRL

Optoelectronic Technology Research Corporation (Jap.)

OTDR

Optical time domain reflectometry

PB, or petabytes

10 ¹⁵bytes

PC

Personal computer/also phase-change (media)

PCR media

Phase-change reversible/recording (high-capacity optical storage)

PCS

Plastic-clad silica

PD

Phase-change disk

Photo CD

Kodak photo storage product

PIC

Photonic integrated circuit

PLC

Planar lightwave circuits

PM(F)

Polarization-maintaining fiber

POF

Plastic optical fiber

PPB

Parts per billion

PPM

Parts per million

PRC

Photorefractive crystals

PSHB

Persistent spectral hole-burning effect

RAID

Redundant array of inexpensive disks ÷ an array of low-cost magnetic disk drives connected in parallel

RF

Radio frequency

RLG

Ring laser gyroscope

RWC

Real World Computing Program

SDH

Synchronous digital hierarchy transmission standard ("Sonet" in United States)

SFS

Superfluorescent fiber sources (Er-doped?)

SM fiber

Single-mode fiber

SNR

Signal-to-noise ratio

Solitons

Solitary waves that retain their shape and speed after colliding with each other, as in a gaseous plasma

SPIE

International Society for Optical Engineering

SRAM

Electronic static random access memory

SRG

Stimulated Raman gain spectroscopy

TB, or terabytes

10 ¹² bytes

TDM

Time-division multiplexing

TDMA

Time-division multiple-access transmission

VCSEL

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser

VDR

Video disc recorder

VIP

NTT's visual/intelligent/personal telecom services

VLSI

Very large-scale integrated (circuits)

WDM

Waveguide-division multiplexing

WORM

Write once, read many