Glass in a decade of light

Abstract

Accelerated research and development is expected to increase significantly the integral role of hght in opto-electronic devices. Telecommunication may serve for longer repeater distances ( > 1000 km) to be achieved by the development of both lower-loss glasses and device sophistication. Heavy cation fluoride glasses are important candidate materials because of potentially low scattering losses, high radiation resistance and transmission in desirable IR ranges, although they still require property and process improvements. Sensors operating in the near infrared will benefit from those developments and command a large market. Digital optics, now a concept mostly of imagination, may become a reality competing with the electronics by switching speed (≪1 ps), and immunity to electrical noise.