Title: Space-Division Multiplexing and Fiber Sensing
Abstract: Experimental demonstrations of SDM have included transmission of 55 spatial modes, 19 core coupled core fiber, and numerous other uncoupled fibers. Using these modes requires new spatial multiplexing technologies such as photonic lanterns, 3-D waveguides, multiplane light conversion. Modes tend to mix and scramble as they propagate long distances which requires powerful digital signal processing or new optical techniques to undo mode mixing, much like adaptive optics corrects for aberrations in the atmosphere. Some of our experiments have used real-time DSP to undo scrambling. From the DSP, we can learn how the environment affects the modes of the fibers. Finally, I will describe some of our work in using deployed fibers to sense the environment.
About the speaker: Nicolas K. Fontaine received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California, Davis, CA, USA, in 2010. In his dissertation, completed while working in the Next Generation Network Systems Laboratory, he studied how to generate and measure the amplitude and phase of broadband optical waveforms in many narrowband spectral slices. Since June 2011, he has been a Technical Staff Member with the Advanced Photonics Division, Bell Laboratories, Crawford Hill, NJ, USA. At Bell Laboratories, he develops devices for space-division multiplexing in multicore and few-mode fibers, builds wavelength cross-connects and filtering devices, and investigates spectral slice coherent receivers for THz bandwidth. He is a an Optica Fellow and associate editor of Optics Express. Dr. Fontaine is the author or co-author of more than 500 publications and 25 patents. He is an avid jazz pianist and enjoys hiking or skiing through the mountains wherever he can find them (certainly not in New Jersey).
Contact:
Andrea Blanco-Redondo
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