Committee:

Dr. Stephen Ralph, ECE, Chair , Advisor

Dr. Matthieu Bloch, ECE

Dr. David Anderson, ECE

Dr. Sorin Tibuleac, ECE

Dr. Neil Guerrero Gonzalez, UN Colombia

Abstract: Over  the  past  50  years,  optical  communications  systems  have  grown  tremendouslyachieving exceptional data rates and reaches. This growth has been enabled through a vari-ety of techniques and technologies such as electronic converters, EDFAs, ROADMs, DSP,WDM, FEC etc.   However,  as optical networks continue to grow,  these techniques andtechnologies will introduce new limitations to all optical communication systems. The ob-jectives of this research revolves around identifying how these techniques and technologieswould affect link performance, manufacturing efficiency, network operation and mainte-nance, and develop methodologies to mitigate or minimize these limitations.