ABSTRACT
Imagine a journey-a journey over great distances and over even greater time, a journey too challenging and long for one person and one lifetime, an epic journey of many, taken together, and spanning many generations. A journey sometimes with friends, but more o¥en with strangers-some never to know. Such is the journey that has borne today’s optical ˜ber communication networks and the optical technologies that enable them. ™is book is an update on the journey to realize and re˜ne optical modulators. Yet we recognize that it necessarily represents the perspectives of but a few who have participated in and continue the pursuit, and so conveys only a portion of the saga. As a guide, the reader interested in the details of optical modulators for communication beyond those surveyed on these pages is referred to the cited literature, which includes a substantial body of earlier and complementary reviews [1-15].
