Optical Fiber Communication: Challenges and Opportunities

Dear Colleagues,

Optical fiber communication plays a crucial role in modern telecommunications, underpinning the backbone of internet and communication networks worldwide. With the rapid growth of many new network services, including 5G and beyond, cloud computing, big data, and virtual reality, the existing optical networks are facing challenges from various aspects such as capacity, latency, cost, and energy consumption. To meet the stringent requirements brought forth by these new applications, researchers have been devoted to developing devices, algorithms, and architectures for high-performance optical fiber communication.

This Special Issue, entitled “Optical Fiber Communication: Challenges and Opportunities”, is dedicated to showcasing the latest explorations and advancements in this research field. We are pleased to invite you to submit your latest research findings to this Special Issue, which welcomes both original research articles and reviews. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Fiber–optic communications;
• Digital and optical signal processing for optical fiber communications;
• Devices and components for optical fiber communications;
• Subsystems for optical transmission;
• Hybrid fiber/free-space optical communications;
• Optical channel models and characteristics;
• Optical networks;
• 5G/6G fronthaul;
• Passive optical networks;
• Wavelength-division multiplexing techniques;
• Space-division multiplexing techniques;
• Cost- and energy-saving techniques;
• Physical layer security in optical networks;
• Integrated sensing and communication in optical fibers.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Zhouyi Hu
Dr. Yang Hong
Dr. Xing Ouyang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• fiber–optic communications
• optical networks
• digital and optical signal processing
• optical devices and components
• optical subsystems and systems.