| Summary: | Despite recent progress, optical fibre transmission systems remain primitive in comparison with, say, microwaves. This general overview of optical fibre and optoelectronics development looks to the future when the full potential of the medium has been developed. In the early days of research on optical fibres it was convenient to consider light propagation in terms of rays reflecting from the interface between the core and cladding. In this way analysis was simplified and many of the results obtained were of practical validity. In fact, optical transmission was treated rather differently from microwave transmission but of course the difference is one of degree only, but because the frequency ratio is about five orders of magnitude, the transmission lines themselves and the associated components look rather different. It is interesting to compare the progress in optical transmission with microwave communications because, as a result, there are some predictions that one can make for the future.
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