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2015-Optical Isolators Global Market Trends

2015-04-08

   According to ElectroniCast, the worldwide optical isolator consumption reached $584.2 million last year…. 

 

Aptos, California (USA) – March 2, 2015  -- ElectroniCast Consultants, a leading market research & technology forecast consultancy addressing the fiber optics communications industry, today announced the release of a new market forecast of the global consumption of optical isolators in optical communication and specialty applications

According to ElectroniCast, the worldwide optical isolator consumption reached $584.2 million last year in 2014.  Optical isolator use was led by Telecommunication applications with a 72 percent market share or $419.2 million.  Market data in this study report refers to consumption (use) for a particular calendar year; therefore, this data is not cumulative data.

Optical isolators are devices that allow light to be transmitted in only one direction. They are most often used to prevent any light from reflecting back down the optical fiber, as this light would enter the source and cause backscattering and feedback problems. This is especially important for high data rate transceivers and transponders, or those devices requiring long span lengths between transceiver pairs. Optical feedback degrades signal-to-noise ratio and consequently bit-error rate. 

“Continuing demand for upgrading communication networks to accommodate rapidly increasing bandwidth requirements will drive the steady consumption of optical fiber links. Optical isolators are used in with high-speed transmitters that are required to transmit longer distances and/or multiple wavelength transmitters,” stated Stephen Montgomery, Director of the Fiber Optics Components group at ElectroniCast Consultants.  

Optical isolators are not widely used in Private Enterprise applications. The worldwide use of fiber optic isolators in Cable TV device deployments are forecast to grow in value at an annual rate of 4.9 percent (2014-2019), as optical fiber is deployed closer to the home driven by multi-media applications. 

Optical isolator units are used in a variety of Military/Aerospace applications requiring rigorous testing and harsh environment fiber optic (HEFO) certification to ensure reliability and performance.  Laser-based fiber optic technology incorporating optical isolators are used in a wide variety of air, sea, ground, and space applications.

 

A major user-group within the Specialty application category is instrument-Laboratory/ R&D.  Optical isolators are used for noise reduction, medical imaging, pulse selection for mode locked lasers, sensing, regeneration switches, disc master, optical trapping, phase shifters, frequency modulation spectroscopy and general shuttering. The optical isolators are also used in sensing for industrial, structures and other many other communication product-oriented manufacturing/test/R&D uses.