Part A of two parts. Part B titled: "The Processing and Evaluation of Long Lived GaA1As Channeled Substrate Planar Lasers". / <p> The design and fabrication of a low cost optical communications link is described. The evaluation of this system shows that it can transmit bipolar analog signals in a bandwidth of O to 17 kHz with less than 0.1% non-linearity, Combined with an autoranging capability, the linear link is demonstrated to be useful for high accuracy remote data acquisiton. </p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr)