Trends in Fiber Optics: Citation Analysis of the Fiber Optic SCI Papers (1974-2007)

We analyze thematic trends and challenging issues in fiber optics research based on the metadata of 4970 research papers indexed in Science Citation Index (SCI) database between 1974 and 2007. We specifically address 1) all-time prominent challenges in fiber optics, 2) a trend of progression in fiber optics 3) the structure and dynamics of the fiber optics community. We utilize CiteSpace, a progressive domain visualization tool, to identify and visualize the movement of research fronts and intellectual bases, persistent clusters of papers, and the evolution of co-authorship networks as well as citation networks. The result contributed an in-depth analysis of a major forum of fiber optics and a systematic and streamlined method to keep abreast of the history and the state of the research of fiber optics.