Working With Industrial Leaders on Optical Telecommunication

Technologies increased transmission capacity of fiber optic links will play a critical role in next-generation telecommunication systems. Advances in materials and devices are the driving force and are already enabling higher transmission rates than ever thought possible. However, many of these advances are developing slowly and the potential to satisfy the demand by this growing market is in serious jeopardy. To move more rapidly the U.S. desperately needs university-industry partnerships to make possible a new approach to such national concerns. Greater balance is needed between the basic and applied research that underlies telecommunications advances, and that educates students in the skills that make these advances possible.

By using our Department's strength in nonlinear and quantum optics, we are trying to position ourselves in the exciting field of optical communication. In an important step, Min Xiao (Principal Investigator) and Michael Henry (Co-Principal Investigator), have received NSF funding of $500,000, with $500,000 matching from the State of Arkansas, for their proposal "University-industry partnership for enabling advances in telecommunications." Their plan centers on forming a partnership between scientists at the University and at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies.

It is Xiao's and Henry's conviction that we are in the early stages of the evolution of new material and device developments that can dramatically increase the transmission rate of information over optical fiber links, and that a university-industry partnership is the best vehicle for creating the educational and research approach needed to produce enabling technologies. This partnership is based on a team effort where faculty, post-doctorals, students, and Lucent scientists will work together, spending time at both laboratories while advancing the state-of-the-art of components and devices for optical communications.

Lucent Technologies is the industry leader in optical communications. Our work with them will help us identify projects that are important to future optical communications developments, and will give our faculty and students many opportunities. They will be able to fine tune their research efforts to impact a significant national problem, they will bring real industry problems into university research, they will establish a higher level of scientific and public visibility, they will engage in an expanded dialog on electronic-photonic problems that will bring together the views of two different cultures, they will develop new telecommunications technical skills, and students will have broader career opportunities. In short, this unique partnership will provide immediate inroads out of geographical and intellectual isolation, to higher levels of competitiveness for outside support, recognition, and bright students.*