By reducing the size and thickness of an optical isolator (for instance, for a fiber to the home installation), transceiver packaging is substantially improved and optical designers have more flexibility in lowering costs. Nanofabricated optical isolators meet this need and have substantial benefits beyond those of conventionally manufactured isolators. With nanofabrication, the acquisition and integration costs associated with broadband services distribution can be greatly reduced. Topics covered include integration or traditional isolators, cost reduction with nanofabrication, protection of the laser from the effects of surface reflection, and marketability. Nanofabricated hybrid isolators are currently made using latched garnet and non-latched garnet substrates, Individual isolators that use latched garnet Faraday rotators are through the environmental qualification testing stage, in full commercial production, and are shipping to transceiver vendors. Wafers of nanofabricated hybrid isolators that use non-latched garnet Faraday rotators (isolator cores) are in the initial stages of commercial sampling to isolator makers and contract makers. Within the next year, nanofabricated monolithic isolators will complement nanofabricated hybrid isolators and will yield almost 700 isolators from one wafer, which is a 700% increase over the quantities that have been obtained with conventional manufacturing processes currently in use. The innovation will permit optical isolators to beat the $1 barrier and help enable CWDM in metro and access networks to become widely available.