Single-mode optical fibers can offer an enormous transmission bandwidth. However, the use of electronic signal processing limits the channel capacity. To eliminate the throughput bottleneck, all-optical processing techniques should be employed. In this paper, we investigate all-optical medium across protocols and network architectures to implement ultrahigh capacity fiber optic networks which can support real-time multimedia communication services. Optical Time Division Multiple Access (OTDMA) and Wavelength Division Multiple Access (WDMA) are described. We present several novel schemes to implement OTDMA networks with the emphasis on optical clock distribution, synchronization, and all-optical detection. The fast switching bistable laser diode is proposed as an all-optical threshold detector and data regenerator. In order to improve the reliability of ultrashort signal detection in optical domain, the self-slot decision technique is presented. A new technique called dual-wavelength OTDMA is investigated. Then we propose an efficient multiple access protocol called WDMA with Optical Time Division Multiplexing (WDMA-OTDM) for multimedia applications. It is shown that the proposed WDMA-OTDM has all advantages possessed by individual OTDMA and WDMA while the network flexibility and efficiency are greatly improved by using WDMA- OTDM.
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