IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology

IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology
Title	IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology
Discipline	Optics, Photonics, Telecommunications
Abbreviation	J. Lightwave Technol.
Publisher	IEEE Photonics Society and IEEE Communications Society
Country	United States
Frequency	Biweekly
History	1983–present
Issn	0733-8724

Contents

IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology is a peer-reviewed scientific periodical focusing on photonics and optical fiber communications research, co-sponsored by the IEEE Photonics Society and the IEEE Communications Society. The journal publishes original research, review articles, and letters on optical systems, devices, and networks, serving authors and readers from institutions such as Bell Labs, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and National Institute of Standards and Technology. Editors, reviewers, and contributors often hail from organizations like Corning Incorporated, Huawei Technologies, Cisco Systems, and Nokia, reflecting the journal's centrality in the development of wavelength-division multiplexing, optical amplification, and integrated photonics.

History

The journal was established in 1983 during an era marked by breakthroughs at places such as Bell Labs, CERN, and AT&T Bell Laboratories where advances in optical fiber and semiconductor laser technology accelerated. Early editorial leadership included scholars associated with University of California, Berkeley, California Institute of Technology, and Princeton University, building on foundational work from Guglielmo Marconi-era communications pioneers and later innovators at Hewlett-Packard and General Electric. Through the 1990s the journal chronicled milestones like the commercialization of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers developed at Bell Laboratories and the expansion of wavelength-division multiplexing driven by research at Corning Incorporated and Lucent Technologies. In the 2000s and 2010s editorial direction reflected collaborations among scholars from University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and Tsinghua University, aligning with industry shifts at Alcatel-Lucent, NTT, and DoCoMo.

Subject matter spans device-level research from semiconductor laser design and photonic integrated circuit fabrication to system-level studies of optical transport network architectures and the deployment challenges faced by operators like Deutsche Telekom and AT&T. Articles address components such as optical modulators, photodetectors, optical amplifiers, and passive devices developed at institutions like Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Fraunhofer Society. System topics include metro optical networks, data center interconnects, submarine cable technologies exemplified by projects involving NEC Corporation and SubCom, and modulation formats influenced by standards bodies like the International Telecommunication Union and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Cross-disciplinary contributions connect to work at Harvard University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and National University of Singapore on areas such as nonlinear optics, quantum photonics, and optical sensing.

The journal follows a peer-review workflow employing editors and associate editors drawn from universities and companies including University of Oxford, University of Tokyo, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and Optical Society of America. Submissions undergo technical review for novelty and rigor, with decisions informed by referees affiliated with Princeton University, Columbia University, University of Michigan, and ETH Zurich. Publication frequency and editorial policies are overseen by the sponsoring societies, which coordinate with editorial boards containing representatives from Microsoft Research, Google Research, IBM Research, and national laboratories like Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Special issues have featured guest editors from Stanford University and University of Southern California focusing on emergent topics such as silicon photonics and coherent transmission.

The journal is indexed in major abstracting services and databases that catalog technical literature cited by researchers at NASA, European Space Agency, and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Indexing includes databases used by scholars at Cornell University, Yale University, and Peking University for literature searches alongside other leading outlets like Nature Photonics and Optics Letters. Coverage ensures discoverability through platforms relied upon by engineers at Broadcom, Intel Corporation, Samsung Electronics, and librarians at institutions such as the Library of Congress.

The journal's impact is reflected in citation metrics tracked by organizations like Clarivate Analytics and usage by engineers at AT&T Labs and researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Its articles have influenced standards and deployments by entities such as European Telecommunications Standards Institute, 3GPP, and corporate research labs at Siemens AG. Reviews published in the journal are often cited alongside landmark papers in Physical Review Letters and IEEE Transactions on Communications.

Noteworthy contributions include early reports on erbium-doped fiber amplifiers connected to work at Bell Labs and Corning Incorporated, influential studies on coherent optical communication developed by teams at University of Southampton and Tampere University of Technology, and seminal papers on silicon photonics linked to groups at University of California, Berkeley and Intel Corporation. The journal also published significant work on space-division multiplexing informed by experiments at University College London and collaborative projects with NEC Corporation and Fujitsu. Collectively, these articles have been cited by follow-on research at Columbia University, University of Toronto, Johns Hopkins University, and industry labs worldwide.

Category:Optics journals Category:IEEE academic journals