2. Optical links

By "link" we mean a transmission system including the physical transmission channel and the complete transmission and reception systems. An optical link is a point-to-point link, as shown in figure 3 :

• of an E/O (electrical/optical) transducer, which is an optical source equipped with a modulation device, upstream of the plane P ₁ of figure 3 ;

• of an O/E (optical/electrical) transducer downstream of the P ₂ plane, which, in reality, is a fast photodetector often followed by an electrical amplifier, making it possible to restore the modulating microwave or radio frequency...