To meet the explosive bandwidth demand in fiber optic communications, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) communication systems must offer increasing channel counts and channel speeds. Since optical filter banks (FBs), which perform as a bank of optical filters, have the advantages of very high time-bandwidth product capabilities, multi-channel signal processing, and versatile frequency responses that can be tailored as specified, they can be used to overcome the bottleneck caused by Optical to Electrical (O/E) and Electrical to Optical (E/O) conversion and in turn increase the system capacity. Thus, optical filter banks are becoming an enabling technology to revolutionize WDM systems from point-to-point systems to transparent all-optical networks. Taking these advantages into account, this thesis aims to systematically study the structure, the design, and the implementation of optical filter banks, particularly for the applications in WDM optical communications.

248 p.