Focaliser l’énergie optique en un petit spot de diamètre beaucoup plus petit que la limite de diffraction a longtemps été un sujet très intéressant en photonique. Dans le domaine Térahertz (avec une longueur d’onde de l’ordre de 300 µm) ce défi est particulièrement important pour répondre à l’intérêt croissant de l’imagerie haute résolution et de la spectroscopie des matériaux d’une taille inférieure à l’échelle submillimétrique de la longueur d’onde en espace libre. Dans ma thèse, j’ai étudié le confinement des ondes de surface aux fréquences THz sur des structures métalliques de dimensions sous longueur d’onde. J’ai expérimentalement mesuré le confinement du champ électrique et calculé la relation de dispersion du mode de surface sur une structure métallique déposée sur un substrat diélectrique de faible permittivité. Ces mesures sont obtenues à l’aide d’un banc de mesures THz guidé, développé pendant ma thèse. La mesure est faite en champ proche par une sonde électro-optique micrométrique, librement positionnable. Ces résultats expérimentaux sont complétés par des simulations numériques, obtenues par le logiciel de simulation par éléments finis, Comsol Multiphysics. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent un confinement de λ/20 du mode EM de surface sur une ligne métallique rectangulaire de petites dimensions. / Focusing optical energy into a small spot diameter much smaller than the diffraction limit has long been a very interesting topic in photonics. In Terahertz (with a wavelength of about 300 microns) this challenge is particularly important to meet the growing interest in high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy of materials whose size is smaller than the wavelength in free space. In my thesis, I studied the confinement of surface waves at THz frequencies on metal structures with sub-wavelength dimensions . I experimentally measured the confinement of the electric field and calculated the dispersion relation of the surface mode on a metal structure deposited on a low permittivity dielectric substrate. These measurements are obtained using a guided-wave time domain spectroscopy set-up, developed during my PhD. The measurement is made by a near-field freely positionable electro-optical probe. These experimental results are supplemented by numerical simulations obtained by finite element analysis software Comsol Multiphysics. The experimental results show a confinement of λ/20 of the EM surface mode on a sub-wavelength dimension rectangular metal wire.

L'évolution vers de nouveaux services, comme la TV à la demande, nécessitant de grosses bandes passantes remet en question les débits transportés par chaque canal optique d'un réseau WDM. Les débits des canaux ont atteint aujourd'hui les 100 Gbit/s. Cette montée en débit doit être accompagnée par de nouvelles fonctionnalités au sein des réseaux de transport optiques. Améliorer la flexibilité et assurer la transparence des réseaux optiques sont des défis très importants auxquels les opérateurs doivent faire face aujourd'hui. Un réseau optique est dit transparent, si les signaux optiques transportés ne subissent aucune conversion optoélectronique sauf au moment de leur insertion et de leur extraction dans le réseau optique. La flexibilité, quant à elle, concerne principalement les fonctions d'agrégation et de désagrégation optiques. Aujourd'hui ces fonctions d'agrégation et de désagrégation sont réalisées dans le domaine électronique, ce qui avec la montée du débit, va engendrer un coût important pour les opérateurs. Une manière d'y remédier serait de trouver une technologie adaptée à la montée du débit et offrant la possibilité de faire de l'agrégation et de la désagrégation optique des flux de trafics. Dans cette thèse nous proposons d'étudier une technique de commutation tout-optique offrant la possibilité de faire de la commutation optique intra-canal. Cette technique, baptisée multi-bande OFDM, consiste à diviser un canal WDM en plusieurs entités appelées sous-bandes. Le nombre de ces entités dépend des contraintes technologiques des équipements utilisés pour générer le canal multi-bande (les filtres optiques, les convertisseurs analogiques/numérique et numériques/analogiques). Nous comparons la technologie multi-bande OFDM par rapport à des technologies tendancielles mono-bande : le cas mono-bande opaque et mono-bande transparent. Nous démontrons que la technologie multi-bande OFDM peut être un compromis entre ces deux technologies pour les futurs réseaux de télécommunications optiques. Pour ce faire, nous calculons les performances en termes de blocage. Nous étudions l'impact de la conversion de longueurs d'onde sur les réseaux multi-bande OFDM ainsi que l'impact d'augmenter les nombres de sous-bandes sur les performances du réseau. Nous dégageons les limites technologiques de cette approche. Dans une autre partie de l'étude, nous montrons l'intérêt économique de la technologie multi-bande OFDM. Nous exposons le gain en coût des émetteurs/récepteurs obtenu grâce au déploiement de la technologie multi-bande OFDM sur un réseau cœur et un réseau métropolitain. / The evolution of new telecommunication services, which requires large bandwidth, challenges bit-rates transported by each optical channel of a WDM network. Bit-rates of optical channels have now reached 100 Gbit/s. This increase in bit-rate must be supported by new features in optical network. Improve flexibility and ensure transparency of optical network, are very important challenges that telecom operators face today. An optical network is called transparent, if the transported optical signals are not converted in electrical domain except at the time of their insertion and extraction in/from the optical network. Flexibility concerns mainly the aggregation / disaggregation processes. Today, the functions of aggregation/disaggregation are made on the electrical domain. This generates a significant cost for operators. One way to avoid this would be to find a technology which offers high bit-rates and enable the aggregation and disaggregation functions in the optical domain. In this thesis, we propose to study all-optical switching technology at the sub-wavelength granularity. This technique, called multi-band OFDM, consists in dividing a WDM channel into multiple entities, called sub-bands. The number of sub-bands depends on the technological constraints of optical components used to transport the optical signal (optical filters, digital analogical converters, analogical digital converters, optical transponders, optical multiplexers, etc.). We compare the multi-band OFDM technology to two legacies scenarios: mono-band opaque and mono-band transparent WDM technologies. We demonstrate that the multi-band OFDM technology can be a trade-off between these two legacies scenarios. To do that, we studied the performance in terms of blocking ratio of the multi-band OFDM technology and mono-bands WDM technologies. We study the impact of increasing the number of sub-bands on network performances. We also investigate the technical limits of this technology. Moreover, we demonstrate the economic interest of the multi-band OFDM. We expose the gain on the number of transponders when the multi-band OFDM technology is deployed on metro and core network.

Ao buscar alternativas para interligação entre importantes centros de geração de energia elétrica localizados no Norte do Brasil e centros consumidores no Nordeste e Sudeste, o setor elétrico brasileiro se depara com o desafio de transpor distâncias superiores a 2000 km. A alternativa em corrente contínua já é bastante utilizada, com desempenho satisfatório. Já a transmissão em meia-onda, ainda não utilizada comercialmente em país algum do mundo, é uma alternativa sugerida por alguns artigos como adequada a esse propósito. Este trabalho se propõe a apresentar uma metodologia de comparação econômica entre alternativas de transmissão e aplicá-la à comparação entre a meia-onda e a corrente contínua, utilizando um cenário muito próximo ao brasileiro. Para possibilitar esta comparação, são apresentados detalhes do funcionamento da linha de meia-onda, já que pouco foi publicado sobre o assunto. São mencionados alguns aspectos adversos de seu comportamento transitório e também são descritas etapas de definição de alternativas de transmissão a serem avaliadas. / In order to connect important power generation plants located in Northern region to the major load centers in the Northeast and Southeast parts of the country, the Brazilian electric sector should deal with the challenge of planning transmission systems to cover distances of more than 2000 km. The HVDC transmission alternative, which has shown satisfactory response and performance to also carry bulk power over long distances, is already used in many countries. Still, the half-wavelength power transmission line (HWLL), not yet commercially used in any country, is an alternative suggested by some papers as suitable for this purpose. Thus, the objective of this work is to present a methodology for the economic comparison amongst the transmission alternatives present today, to thereafter apply it to the HWLL and HVDC transmission technologies. To do so, a closest scenario to that of the Brazilian case will be used. In order to perform this comparison, some details of the HWLL operation are explored, since little was published on this subject. Also, some adverse aspects of the HWLL transient behavior as well as the steps for defining the transmission alternatives to be evaluated are presented.

<p>The task of the project was to evaluate a differential phase shift keying demodulation technique by replacing a Mach-Zehnder interferometer receiver with an optical filter (Fiber Bragg Grating). Computer simulations were made with single optical transmission, multi channel systems and transmission with combined angle/intensity modulated optical signals. The simulations showed good results at both 10 and 40 Gbit/s. Laboratory experiments were made at 10 Gbit/s to verify the simulation results. It was found that the demodulation technique worked, but not with satisfactory experimental results. The work was performed at Eindhoven University of Technology, Holland, within the framework of the STOLAS project at the department of Electro-optical communication.</p>

In this work, homojunction interfacial workfunction internal photoemission (HIWIP) detectors based on GaAs, and heterojunction interfacial workfunction internal photoemission (HEIWIP) detectors based mainly on the Gallium Arsenide/Aluminum Gallium Arsenide material system are presented. Design principles of HIWIP and HEIWIP detectors, such as free carrier absorption, photocarrier generation, photoemission, and responsivity, are discussed in detail. Results of p-type HIWIPs based on GaAs material are presented. Homojunction detectors based on p-type GaAs were found to limit their operating wavelength range. This is mainly due to band depletion arising through carrier transitions from the heavy/light hole bands to the split off band. Designing n-type GaAs HIWIP detectors is difficult as it is strenuous to control their workfunction. Heterojunction detectors based on Gallium Arsenide/Aluminum Gallium Arsenide material system will allow tuning their threshold wavelength by adjusting the alloy composition of the Aluminum Gallium Arsenide/Gallium Arsenide barrier, while keeping a fixed doping density in the emitter. The detectors covered in this work operate from 1 to 128 micron (300 to 2.3 THz). Enhancement of detector response using resonance cavity architecture is demonstrated. Threshold wavelength extension of HEIWIPs by varying the Al composition of the barrier was investigated. The threshold limit of approximately 3.3 THz (92 micron), due to a practical Al fraction limit of approximately 0.005, can be overcome by replacing GaAs emitters in Gallium Arsenide/Aluminum Gallium Arsenide HEIWIPs with Aluminum Gallium Arsenide/Gallium Arsenide emitters. As the initial step, terahertz absorption for 1 micron-thick Be-doped Aluminum Gallium Arsenide epilayers (with different Al fraction and doping density) grown on GaAs substrates was measured. The absorption probability of the epilayers was derived from these absorption measurements. Based on the terahertz absorption results, an Aluminum Gallium Arsenide/Gallium Arsenide HEIWIP detector was designed and the extension of threshold frequency (f0) to 2.3 THz was successfully demonstrated. In a different study, switching in Gallium Arsenide/Aluminum Gallium Arsenide heterostructures from a tunneling dominated low conductance branch to a thermal emission dominated high conductance branch was investigated. This bistability leads to neuron-like voltage pulses observed in some heterostructure devices. The bias field that initiates the switching was determined from an iterative method that uses feedback information, such as carrier drift velocity and electron temperature, from hot carrier transport. The bias voltage needed to switch the device was found to decrease with the increasing device temperature.

The task of the project was to evaluate a differential phase shift keying demodulation technique by replacing a Mach-Zehnder interferometer receiver with an optical filter (Fiber Bragg Grating). Computer simulations were made with single optical transmission, multi channel systems and transmission with combined angle/intensity modulated optical signals. The simulations showed good results at both 10 and 40 Gbit/s. Laboratory experiments were made at 10 Gbit/s to verify the simulation results. It was found that the demodulation technique worked, but not with satisfactory experimental results. The work was performed at Eindhoven University of Technology, Holland, within the framework of the STOLAS project at the department of Electro-optical communication.

The objective of this thesis is to study of optical effects, arising in the form of non-uniform waveguide structure, complicated refractive index profiles or due to pulse propagation in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical communication systems. These effects are important and critically influence the performance of DWDM optical systems. A comprehensive survey of current literature on optical effects due to nonuniform optical structure and nonlinear optical effects is first done, showing their advantages and disadvantage in optical communication systems. A survey on methods of optical waveguide analysis is also done. The main contribution has been made to three main aspects of the problem : Accurate analysis of uniform/non-uniform optical waveguides with arbitary refractive index profiles Pulse propagation and distortion in DWDM Raman amplification systems. Use of non-uniform FBG to compensate for pulse distortion We study several existing analytical techniques developed so far for analyzing the mode of non-uniform optical waveguide structures. Later, we verify the analytical results by finite element method (FEM). The convergence study is also carried out. A new computational technique is proposed modifying the finite element method to analyze complex refractive index profiles required for the analysis, namely single mode step index profile, multi clad fiber, W -profile, chirp profile etc. An accuracy of 10−4 in the calculation of propagation constant/eigen-value is demonstrated. Dispersion characteristics of optical fibers w.r.t. different profile parameters is evaluated. A modification to scalar BPM is proposed and applied to study the effects of inhomogeneities along the propagation direction. The applicability and accuracy of the method is tested using integrated optic waveguide devices, namely, graded index slab waveguide. The proposed BPM uses Fourier decomposition of the transverse field. Coupled mode theory (CMT) of optical waveguides in non-homogeneous optical medium is applied to study the interaction of lightwaves propagation together such as in a DWDM system. The BPM results is verified by CMT. The inhomogeneous waveguide theory is extended to study pulse propagation in DWDM optical communication system. Nonlinear optical effects are an important aspects of DWDM systems with fiber Raman amplifier. Finite difference time domain (FDTD) method is necessary to study these nonlinear optical effects as other conventional methods are not suitable here. Here, we discuss DWDM optical communication systems due to nonlinearity in the form of SRS effect. In case of FRA, we study the various kinds of fiber profile design parameters, for the purpose to achieve and extend the flat gain bandwidth over the EDFA window. We also propose and study, a new bi-directional optical fiber transmission scheme with various constraints, using Raman amplification process with and without pump depletion. Our scheme, provides an advantage like high SNR, low pump induced noise, for long-haul communication link. We find that, there is a quite significant crosstalk and power coupling among the dense DWDM channels but earlier discussed BPM fails to account for possible interference effects among the channels. To reduce the harmful nonlinear optical effects like four wave mixing (FWM), we need to deploy a high chromatic dispersion fiber, which will ultimately lead to high pulse walk-off rate among the DWDM channels; hence for high bit rate long haul systems, walk-off effect can not be ignored. Application of FDTD provided an improved insight into the effect of GVD on stimulated Raman scattering crosstalk than different modulation techniques and line codes. It is shown through analysis that pulse walk-off phenomena may distort the data asymmetrically; especially for case of wide-band DWDM transmission system. Hence, the pulse walk-off effect should be considered in future systems containing optical amplifier. It is shown, that large walk-off rate may reduce the crosstalk among DWDM channels but tends to increase the asymmetric pulse distortion. Data may lose due to high walk-off effect. We also investigate channel addition/removal process in DWDM fiber Raman amplifier. We also demonstrate that the pulse walk-off effect tends to lead significantly to positive chirp for higher frequency channels. This feature can be exploited to overcome the chromatic dispersion effects in DWDM transmission systems. Pulse walk-off induced chirp, can be compensated by using the nonuniform fiber Bragg grating (NUFBG). The CMT due to periodic perturbation of the circular cylindrical waveguide structures is applied here. Here, we discuss the function of fiber Bragg grating as a transmission versus reflecting grating filter. We also discuss, FBG application to gain flattening of an EDFA window as well as how the group velocity dispersion (GVD) will be affected with bandwidth and coupling coefficient. We develop a new analytical technique to estimate the bandwidth of FBG based optical system. Finally, we investigate the dispersion compensation properties, pulse distortion, peak reflectivity analysis in uniform/non-uniform FBG due to an uniform/non-uniform incoming signal. More complicated refractive index profile can significantly reduce the GVD as well as side lobes intensity. Dispersion characteristic due to an arbitrary refractive index profile is discussed in details for the case of non-uniform FBG. Thus, we concluded that wide band DWDM optical communication system need to closely take into account various inhomogeneities and nonlinearities of optical fibers w.r.t. wave and pulse propagation.

Η δρομολόγηση και ανάθεση μηκών κύματος (routing and wavelength assignment - RWA) αποτελεί ένα πολύ σημαντικό πρόβλημα, που απασχολεί τους σχεδιαστές WDM οπτικών δικτύων και είναι γνωστό, πως είναι NP-πλήρες. Στην εργασία αυτή σχεδιάζουμε και υλοποιούμε έναν αλγόριθμο για το στατικό RWA, που βασίζεται σε έναν προτεινόμενο σχηματισμό (μη ακέραιου) γραμμικού προγραμματισμού (linear programming - LP). Ισχυριζόμαστε, πως ο σχηματισμός αυτός είναι σε θέση να παρέχει ακέραιες βέλτιστες λύσεις (παρά την εν γένει μη ακέραια φύση του) για ένα μεγάλο ποσοστό στιγμιότυπων εισόδου, οδηγώντας έτσι σε αντίστοιχες ακριβείς λύσεις του RWA. Η πολυπλοκότητα του αλγόριθμου κυριαρχείται από το χρόνο εκτέλεσης του αλγόριθμου Simplex, ο οποίος θεωρείται αποδοτικός για μια μεγάλη πλειοψηφία στιγμιότυπων εισόδου. Στα διαφανή (πλήρως οπτικά) δίκτυα, η ποιότητα του σήματος υπόκειται σε μια ποικιλία από φυσικές εξασθενήσεις, όπως είναι η διασπορά λειτουργίας πόλωσης (polarization mode dispersion - PMD), ο θόρυβος αυθόρμητης εκπομπής ενισχυτή (amplified spontaneous emission - ASE - noise) και η χρωματική διασπορά (chromatic dispersion - CD). Αυτές οι εξασθενήσεις μοντελοποιούνται γραμμικά και μπορούν να αντιμετωπιστούν αποτελεσματικά από ένα σύνολο αναλυτικών τύπων ως επιπρόσθετοι περιορισμοί στο RWA. Εφαρμόζουμε τον αλγόριθμό μας και εκτελούμε RWA βασισμένο σε περιορισμούς εξασθένησης, με σκοπό να παρατηρήσουμε συγκριτικά αποτελέσματα στην απόδοση ενός τυπικού μητροπολιτικού δικτύου υπό διάφορες παραμέτρους του δικτύου και των εξασθενήσεων, όπως είναι ο ρυθμός bit, ο τύπος και το κέρδος των ενισχυτών, η χρησιμοποιούμενη διάταξη διαμόρφωσης, κλπ. / Routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) is a very important problem concerning WDM optical network designers and is known to be NP-complete. In this work, we design and implement an algorithm for the static RWA, that is based on a proposed (not integer) linear programming formulation. We claim, that this formulation is able to provide integer optimal solutions (despite its non integral nature) for a large fraction of input instances, yielding thus to corresponding exact RWA solutions. The algorithm's complexity is dominated by the execution time of Simplex LP-solver, that is considered efficient in the great majority of all possible input instances. In transparent (all-optical) networks, the signal quality is subject to a variety of physical impairments, such as polarization mode dispersion (PMD), amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise and chromatic dispersion (CD). Those impairments are linearly modeled and are handled effectively by a set of analytical formulae as additional constraints on RWA. We apply our algorithm to perform impairment-constraint based RWA, in order to obtain comparative results of a typical metropolitan network's performance under various network and impairment parameters, such as bit rate, amplifier gain and type, modulation format used, etc.

This thesis presents the investigations of Rubidium atoms in magneto-optical traps and triply charged Thorium ions in electrodynamic traps for future advances in long-distance quantum telecommunication, next generation clocks, and fundamental tests of current physical theories. Experimental realizations of two core building blocks of a quantum repeater are described: a multiplexed quantum memory and a telecom interface for long-lived quantum memories. A color change of single-photon level light fields by several hundred nanometers in an optically thick cold gas is demonstrated, while preserving quantum entanglement with a remotely stored matter excitation. These are essential elements for long-distance quantum telecommunication, fundamental tests of quantum mechanics, and applications in secure communication and computation. The first trapping and laser cooling of Thorium-229 ions are described. Thorium-229 nuclear electric quadrupole moment is revealed by hyperfine spectroscopy of triply charged Thorium-229 ions. A system to search for the isomer nuclear transition in Thorium-229 is developed and tested with the excitation of a forbidden electronic transition at 717 nm. Direct excitation of the nuclear transition with laser light would allow for an extremely accurate clock and a sensitive test bed for variations of fundamental physical constants, including the fine structure constant.

The continuous growth of traffic demand driven by the brisk increase in number of Internet users and emerging online services creates new challenges for communication networks. The latest advances in Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology make it possible to build Transparent Optical Networks (TONs) which are expected to be able to satisfy this rapidly growing capacity demand. Moreover, with the ability of TONs to transparently carry the optical signal from source to destination, electronic processing of the tremendous amount of data can be avoided and optical-to-electrical-to-optical (O/E/O) conversion at intermediate nodes can be eliminated. Consequently, transparent WDM networks consume relatively low power, compared to their electronic-based IP network counterpart. Furthermore, TONs bring also additional benefits in terms of bit rate, signal format, and protocol transparency. However, the absence of O/E/O processing at intermediate nodes in TONs has also some drawbacks. Without regeneration, the quality of the optical signal transmitted from a source to a destination might be degraded due to the effect of physical-layer impairments induced by the transmission through optical fibers and network components. For this reason, routing approaches specifically tailored to account for the effect of physical-layer impairments are needed to avoid setting up connections that don’t satisfy required signal quality at the receiver. Transparency also makes TONs highly vulnerable to deliberate physical-layer attacks. Malicious attacking signals can cause a severe impact on the traffic and for this reason proactive mechanisms, e.g., network design strategies, able to limit their effect are required. Finally, even though energy consumption of transparent WDM networks is lower than in the case of networks processing the traffic at the nodes in the electronic domain, they have the potential to consume even less power. This can be accomplished by targeting the inefficiencies of the current provisioning strategies applied in WDM networks. The work in this thesis addresses the three important aspects mentioned above. In particular, this thesis focuses on routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) strategies specifically devised to target: (i) the lightpath transmission quality, (ii) the network security (i.e., in terms of vulnerability to physical-layer attacks), and (iii) the reduction of the network energy consumption. Our contributions are summarized below. A number of Impairment Constraint Based Routing (ICBR) algorithms have been proposed in the literature to consider physical-layer impairments during the connection provisioning phase. Their objective is to prevent the selection of optical connections (referred to as lightpaths) with poor signal quality. These ICBR approaches always assign each connection request the least impaired lightpath and support only a single threshold of transmission quality, used for all connection requests. However, next generation networks are expected to support a variety of services with disparate requirements for transmission quality. To address this issue, in this thesis we propose an ICBR algorithm supporting differentiation of services at the Bit Error Rate (BER) level, referred to as ICBR-Diff. Our approach takes into account the effect of physical-layer impairments during the connection provisioning phase where various BER thresholds are considered for accepting/blocking connection requests, depending on the signal quality requirements of the connection requests. We tested the proposed ICBR-Diff approach in different network scenarios, including also a fiber heterogeneity. It is shown that it can achieve a significant improvement of network performance in terms of connection blocking, compared to previously published non-differentiated RWA and ICBR algorithms.  Another important challenge to be considered in TONs is their vulnerability to physical-layer attacks. Deliberate attacking signals, e.g., high-power jamming, can cause severe service disruption or even service denial, due to their ability to propagate in the network. Detecting and locating the source of such attacks is difficult, since monitoring must be done in the optical domain, and it is also very expensive. Several attack-aware RWA algorithms have been proposed in the literature to proactively reduce the disruption caused by high-power jamming attacks. However, even with attack-aware network planning mechanisms, the uncontrollable propagation of the attack still remains an issue. To address this problem, we propose the use of power equalizers inside the network nodes in order to limit the propagation of high-power jamming attacks. Because of the high cost of such equipment, we develop a series of heuristics (incl. Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP)) aiming at minimizing the number of power equalizers needed to reduce the network attack vulnerability to a desired level by optimizing the location of the equalizers. Our simulation results show that the equalizer placement obtained by the proposed GRASP approach allows for 50% reduction of the sites with the power equalizers while offering the same level of attack propagation limitation as it is possible to achieve with all nodes having this additional equipment installed. In turn, this potentially yields a significant cost saving.    Energy consumption in TONs has been the target of several studies focusing on the energy-aware and survivable network design problem for both dedicated and shared path protection. However, survivability and energy efficiency in a dynamic provisioning scenario has not been addressed. To fill this gap, in this thesis we focus on the power consumption of survivable WDM network with dynamically provisioned 1:1 dedicated path protected connections. We first investigate the potential energy savings that are achievable by setting all unused protection resources into a lower-power, stand-by state (or sleep mode) during normal network operations. It is shown that in this way the network power consumption can be significantly reduced. Thus, to optimize the energy savings, we propose and evaluate a series of energy-efficient strategies, specifically tailored around the sleep mode functionality. The performance evaluation results reveal the existence of a trade-off between energy saving and connection blocking. Nonetheless, they also show that with the right provisioning strategy it is possible to save a considerable amount of energy with a negligible impact on the connection blocking probability. In order to evaluate the performance of our proposed ICBR-Diff and energy-aware RWA algorithms, we develop two custom-made discrete-event simulators. In addition, the Matlab program of GRASP approach for power equalization placement problem is implemented. / <p>QC 20120508</p>